Variation on a Theme
by Davies
Summary: A tale of Sailor Moon and her Soldiers, but of a different world than the one which we know. AU.
1. Prologue

We've been here before.

It's a bit of Earth - the planet, not the synonym for dirt - that doesn't have a great deal to recommend it. Gale force winds sweep across the top of the glacier. The temperature only rises to just a bit below freezing for few days in the middle of the "long day", when the sun rises and doesn't set for weeks. And it's just a little after sunrise, now.

Nothing to see here. An ecologist might have a few odd questions, though. Questions like, "how'd a lot of the upper layers of ice come to melt fairly recently?" and, "where'd that chasm come from?" and, "how deep does it go?"

Tempting though it would be to reply to the ecologist's last question, in sonorous tones, "It goes all the way down," we have to admit that it's only a few hundred meters deep. But at bottom, it opens up into a vault that fills almost the entire glacier; there's actually only a few meters of very dense snow between the surface and the hollow, in most places.

Examining the hollow would reveal the wreckage of a civilization. It is divided up into about a thousand empty chambers; empty save for broken crystals, torn fabrics, and the occasional grease stain. If anyone who lived here survived whatever tore the hole in the roof - and an architect would be able to tell us, after she finished oohing and aahing over the obelisks, that the hole was a fairly recent addition - they've left. And they probably aren't coming back.

Can you blame them?

If by now you haven't guessed the identity of this little island at the top of the world, let's clue you in: this was the Dark Kingdom. (Despite claims that the place was actually in some negatively-oriented parallel universe, a close examination of final stories about it suggest otherwise.) Now, though, it is not much of anything, and no one knows or cares what happens here.

Which may be why the woman, who is gazing intently at a hand-held scanner as she stands on the glacier's surface, is able to do so unchallenged.

Who is this woman, wearing a long, black cape over a costume best described as a burgundy-colored leotard with matching knee-length boots? What thoughts run through her head as she frowns, chewing on a stray lock of shiny gray hair? What's her plan, her agenda, her raison d'etre?

Stick around and find out, suggests the author. And it is at this point that a vital digression should be made. The author isn't going to tell you everything, Constant Reader. There will be times when he will note something in passing, such as the number of stars on a certain flag, which may leave you wondering, "Hey wait, how did that happen?" But there will be very few expository pauses for such trivia.

And even worse, sometimes the minds and hearts of important characters will be closed to our observation, even if they've been open only a little while before. We've got a lot of distance and duration to cover, and not a lot of time or space to do so. If we sit around jawing constantly, we might miss -

Whoah, that was close! The sensor in the woman's hand just started buzzing frantically, and a sudden smile creases her lips for just a second. (If we'd taken the time to explain who she is, we might have missed seeing the vital character-developing moment of her smile.) Now she strides purposefully towards a certain piece of the icy landscape; specifically, part of that area which would have puzzled our ecologist.

We know, of course, that it was that area where Princess Serenity and Queen Beryl faced each other in final combat, which was melted and shattered by the force of the magic each used against the other, before the entire area turned into a pink hole in the space-time continuum. But, wondered the woman some time ago, was every thing about these combatants swallowed up by that hole? And now she knows that something does remain, something that she can use. For the beginning of this story is also the end of another one, as is often the way of such things.

A few adjustments to her sensor narrow the field, and now she stands directly in front of an otherwise unremarkable patch of ice which holds what she needs. With a sigh, she spreads her hand.

"That's not a very good idea," comments a cool, feminine voice from behind her.

She doesn't really _look_ surprised as she turns around, cape flaring dramatically. The woman standing a few meters away, in ground marked by the the other woman's footprints in fact, wears the black-and-white, mini-skirted uniform of Sailor Pluto - to be expected, since that's who she is.

"I'm a bit surprised," says the woman we first met just a few minutes ago. "All the literature suggests that temporal sensitivity isn't any use in discerning the presence of an extra-continuual intrusion."

Sailor Pluto doesn't blink. "I'm sure that you can account for my awareness of your presence, all the same."

"Wards!" the woman replies in a tone of great enlightenment. "You must have set up wards to warn you if someone got too close to your princess' DNA!"

"As you say." You'll note that's not a confirmation. Pluto does that a lot.

"Very well, then. If you are determined to keep me from the fulfillment of my mission -"

"Not really," Pluto interjects.

"- then you'll find me no easy ... did you just say `not really'?"

The Guardian of the Gates of Time shrugs vaguely. "If you wish to recreate the legend of the Moon Princess on your own world, and this is the method you would use to do so, then who am I to stop you?"

The woman stares at her anticipated adversary for several moments, and wonders if this might be some bizarre tactic of reverse psychology. At last she decides that it doesn't matter, that she's come too far in her plans to turn aside now. Thus, she turns back and extends a ring-adorned hand, which commences to glow with a faint red light. A frozen chunk of something flies up into her hand.

She returns her gaze to Sailor Pluto, hoping to see dismay on her face. Disappointingly, Pluto answers her gaze with equanimity, or possibly even disinterest. The woman, affronted by this, tries for another moment to summon up a stinging retort to verbally put the arrogant magical soldier in her place, but finds that she can't think of anything sufficiently sneering and vicious. With a disgusted snort, she wraps her cape around herself, and vanishes without any noteworthy effects.

"You're welcome," murmurs Pluto, as she begins to consider what she ought to do next.

This particular intruder, as it happens, fell under the category in Pluto's mind that translates as "Mostly Harmless". Her continuum is sufficiently far removed from this one, that even if there are spill-over effects - which there always are, after a sufficiently extended period of time - they shouldn't affect the continuum Pluto watches over.

This sounds cold-blooded, but policing a long stretch of time in a single reality is a difficult enough task; Pluto's soul rebels at the thought of trying to police the multiverse.

Still, the woman's strategy points out a potential resource that much more dangerous intruders might exploit. Since it's unlikely that her planning went unobserved, it's quite possible that such exploitation could be imminent.

Pluto draws a deep breath of Arctic air.

Dozens of tiny deathscreams erupt all over the glacier, destroying all the fragments of life that linger from where five teenaged girls and a college student had their lives cut short, before a wish from one of them set matters right. As an afterthought, they obliterate all traces of the remains of Queen Beryl, and set up an avalanche which will crush the ruins of the Dark Kingdom out of existence.

That done, and the collapse of the glacier still minutes away, Pluto pauses to rest and to imagine the world that the Outsider plans to create. It is Pluto's great secret - at least, one of the great secrets of this particular Pluto - that she has seen the three hundred thousand years of her life repeated an impossibly large number of times, with millions of potential variations of every event. But she has never seen the birth of a truly new continuity, and wishes momentarily that she could watch what will happen.

Perhaps it will be better than her own.

Folly, of course; she will never see it, and _this_ is her world. With that, she teleports away, moments before the ice beneath her feet collapses on itself.

Listen; there's a universe about to get interesting as hell, just a few blocks away.

Let's go.


	2. Chapter 1

_We have been forced into a course of imperialism._  
_So let it be. Germany and Japan are not safe to _  
_have around; we are bigger and tougher than they _  
_are, I sincerely believe. Let's rule them. We did not _  
_want it that way - but if someone has to be boss, _  
_I want it to be us. _

- Robert A Heinlein, in a letter to John W. Campbell,  
Jr., dated December 9, 1941.

**April 30, 1992**

The house that has become the current locus of our awareness (227 Greenwood Avenue, incidentally) isn't particularly large. A rough square perhaps forty-five feet on a side with off-white walls and a bright blue roof, it has two floors and a driveway (but no garage) in which rests a single, mid-size sedan.

A large living/dining room, the kitchen, and a small office largely take up the first floor. Right now, both of the active members of the household are in the kitchen. Mother is humming gently as she fries eggs on the stovetop; father sits at the small breakfast table and reads the morning newspaper. At precisely 7:08:37, a small brown-haired tornado erupts from one of the three bedrooms upstairs, streaks down the stairs and screeches to a halt by hopping into a seat at the table opposite Father.

"Morning-poppa-morning-momma-can-I-have-peanut-butter-on-my-toast?"

"Good morning, Diane," replies Father, without setting down his paper.

Mother tsks. "Well, if you really want to mix peanut butter and fried eggs, I won't stop you. But nobody's getting any disgusting combinations of foods until Sam gets up."

"What? Hey, no, no fair! That won't be for another half-hour, Sam sleeps like a rock, no fair!"

"Sorry," answers Mother, manifestly not sorry.

Diane glowers at the cosmic injustice of it all, then hops off her chair to march briskly out of the kitchen and back up the stairs, and then into a different bedroom than the one that she'd exited earlier.

Pausing momentarily to deliver another ferocious glare at the sprawled form occupying the room's bed, Diane heads over to the desk and proceeds to fiddle momentarily with the clock radio. This accomplished, she beats a hasty retreat.

At 7:12, the clock radio erupts into the middle of Mina Rush's cover of "Jailhouse Rock", specifically the synthesizer solo. Samantha Allison Hazzard, age sixteen, sits up in bed aghast that her favorite easy listening station has elected to play such an atrocity. Moments later, as the time indicated on the clock registers with her, shock turns to anger, and she springs out of bed to grab her dressing gown and wrap it around her pyjamas. Thus girded, she descends the stairs like a blonde fury.

"Good morning dearest and best beloved older sister, what would you like on your toast?" Diane asks before Sam can get anything out.

"Blood - yours!"

Diane affects an air of sanctimony. "I was just acting in everyone's best interests."

"How is it in *my* best interest to get yanked out of bed by that cacophony, you little discordian?"

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Besides," Diane continues over the start of another tirade, "it's the responsibility of any good agent to create situations that she can exploit to advance her principle's cause, without regards to their impact on -"

"Ah-hah!" shouts Sam.

"Wha-?"

"Isn't that a direct quote from Nicholas Sparks' autobiography?" asks Father, folding his newspaper and raising a black eyebrow behind his glasses. "The one I specifically told you that you weren't old enough to read yet?"

"Er-"

"Of course, I haven't given Sam permission to read it either, which raises the question of how she recognized it," he muses.

"Um - you *did* give me permission," Sam replies quickly. "A couple weeks ago."

Father considers. "It's possible. I remember thinking, when you asked about it a few years ago, that it'd be all right for you to read it when you were sixteen. However, it's also possible that I eventually reconsidered and decided that it'd be okay for someone Diane's age ... and that I just don't remember giving her permission, either."

Sam and Diane exchange mutually hostile glares. But Sam says quietly, "That sounds right."

"All right then."

"Eggs are done," Mother reports. "What do you want on your toast, Sam?"

"Cheese," Sam says grudgingly as she takes a seat at the table, being sure to leave a space open for Mother to be the wall between Diane and herself. She can tell just by looking that her little half-sister is just aching to stick out her tongue, and that only the amused supervision of their father, drinking his first coffee of the day, holds Diane back. "Please," she adds as an afterthought.

Mother squirts a thin layer of cheese sauce over two slices of toast, some peanut butter onto another pair, and prepares two separate pairs with raspberry jam. Father gets up to carry his own plate and Mother's. After a short, silent prayer, the Hazzards break their fast.

Swallowing his first bite, Father addresses Sam. "I'm afraid I won't be able to drive you to school today. I have to be on my way this morning by quarter of eight."

Sam acknowledges the information with a nod. "I was planning on taking the train with Mary anyway."

She notices that Father looks mildly concerned by her statement, but decides that if he doesn't want to bring his concerns up - whether about her taking public transportation to school, or about Mary Tanner, her best friend - she won't press for details that could get another argument going. She suspects that neither the mode of transportation nor the company is what actually worries Father, but if so, she really doesn't want to talk about it. It's not her fault; it's never been her fault. She wishes people wouldn't make such a big deal out of it.

As it happens, Mother isn't inclined to discuss that sort of thing either - not at the breakfast table at least - and if she caught the slight look of worry on her husband's face, she doesn't mention it. Not now.

Diane, of course, is obliviously self-involved, and notices none of this subtext.

By 8:25, breakfast is done, and Sam takes her plate to the kitchen sink before dashing upstairs to take a small, petty revenge by monopolizing the bathroom and the shower for the next ten minutes. After showering, she brushes her teeth, runs a comb through her hair, and applies a small amount of lip-gloss. She opens the door to leave and is nearly bowled over by her little sister's entrance. Before she's out, the shower is already running over the sound of (false) complaints that Sam has used up all the hot water.

She dresses quickly, putting on a white blouse and the usual, ankle-length black skirt, along with a green vest, gray jacket and matching tie. Her school's pin - the only piece of jewelry she's permitted - goes on last. Sam descends the stairs just in time to see Father pulling his jacket on over his shoulder holster, and giving Mother a quick kiss before putting on his hat. "Have a good day, Sam," he says, and then raises his voice. "I'm off, Diane!"

"Buhbye, Daddy!" comes the cry from upstairs.

And he exits through the doorway. Mother watches him go with anxiety that she can't quite disguise. Sam, not wanting to intrude further, heads into the kitchen to start making her lunch, listening as she does to the sound of the car pulling out of the driveway. As she mulls over whether to pack a juice bottle or buy one at school, Mother returns to the kitchen.

"Is it bad?" Sam asks impulsively.

"What? Oh. I don't know, he wouldn't tell me if it was. It's just that I always worry a bit when he gets called in earlier than usual. I'm always afraid that it's going to be a long day."

"Well, it already hasn't been as long as that one time," Sam comments, remembering when she was only eight and Father had gone into work shortly after midnight. By the end of the day, there had been a new President in the Oval Office.

Mother smiles - thinly, but she smiles all the same. "There is that."

Sam quickly finishes with her sandwich, and packages it and the cherries in a brown bag, having decided that she can afford to buy juice at school. Now to gather her homework.

One quick check of her algebra problems later, Sam has packed her books (both text- and note-) into her satchel, along with a collection of Robert E. Howard's poetry to read in study hall. (This book, for the curious, is also not on her approved reading list.)

With only a few minutes remaining before her planned time of departure, Sam decides to jump the clock and head out at once. So, with a quick call of farewell to her mother and her sister, she heads out the door at 8:59.

Mary Tanner stands a few blocks down Greenwood, in front of a bus stop. Her attire is identical to Sam's, save that her button is on the opposite side of the jacket, and those who don't know them well might be startled by their resemblance to each other. The differences - Mary's long, curly red hair vs. Sam's short straight blonde; Sam's perfect vision vs. Mary's nearsightedness, corrected by glasses; slight differences in body shape - outnumber the similarities, and no one would ever mistake them for twins. But there are rumors ...

Sam was only a few months old when Mother's first marriage, to Sam's biological father, ended in divorce. The allegations of adultery were flung by both sides, but only stuck to the husband. One of those named by the wife's attorney was Mary's recently widowed mother. But she denied the accusations, refuted the evidence, and maintained her dignity. It didn't matter; there were many other other women.

The two women never spoke again, yet their daughters became the closest friends. There are things that they both know, and yet have never discussed with each other. There is tension, and it is growing. But right now, Mary smiles as she sees Sam walking briskly towards her, and stubs her cigarette out on the sidewalk beneath her shoe.

Before Mary says anything, Sam quickly and silently presents her with a box of breath mints. Rolling her eyes, Mary nonetheless takes the box and shakes a mint out of it, then pops it in her mouth.

"What's your mother going to say when she figures out that you're nicking her smokes?" Sam asks.

"She knows," Mary replies. "Probably hopes it's just another phase that I'm going to grow out of." She reflects, briefly, on all the phases that her mother has hoped she'd outgrow. Associating with "that girl" was first on the list, eight years ago.

Sam shakes her head in disbelief. "Let's go. We're going to be on time, this time."

"Yeah. Right."

Sam endures her best friend's sarcasm. Mary, at least, doesn't blame her, even though the whole thing has gotten her into just as much trouble as it's gotten Sam.

They avoid talking about that as they walk briskly down Greenwood to the Thunderbay train station. Mary suppresses her tendency towards gossip, and Sam holds back her inclination to start in about the books that she's reading. That leaves them with news and entertainment - still fertile ground - and Mary reminds Sam that she should check to see if the new novels have arrived at the bookstore after school.

The incident begins after they reach the platform for the train, having already shown their student passes to the ticket taker. The platform is crowded at this time of the morning, but not as crowded as it becomes in early evening, when suburbanites seeking amusement head into the central city even as workers there are heading home. So when Sam's eye lights on a weedy-looking man in his mid twenties who has quietly approached a number of ladies on the platform from behind their blind spots, then brushed past them with a quick apology, her curiosity is aroused.

"I think that guy's a pickpocket," she says to Mary, sotto voce.

"What guy?" Mary replies without looking.

"That -"

"I don't see any guy. I do see that the big sign just lit up to say the train is coming in. What say you and I get on it?"

"But -"

"I'm getting on. I don't care what you do, I'm getting on the train. I mean it. Don't -"

The train arrives. As though this is a signal he has been waiting for, the pickpocket starts heading for the exit. With a moue of frustration, Sam starts running.

"Hey you! Hold it right there!" she calls, loudly enough that she can be heard despite the screams of the incoming train. Of course, the perpetrator - while startled that anyone noticed his redistribution of wealth - doesn't hold it anywhere, and also starts to run.

He is, unfortunately for him, running against a girl who has won every foot race she ever entered from the time she was five. Something in Sam's heart exults in the chase, in the sensation of the wind in her hair and the swiftened pumping of blood in her heart. She's hindered by her skirt and by her shoes, but these are trifles.

The pickpocket has barely gotten through the door leading out of the platform when Sam catches up with him. Opting for the direct approach, she grabs him around his lower abdomen, and shifts their combined weight just enough to pull him off-balance completely. They both hit the floor, but Sam is on top with a knee in the small of the pickpocket's back.

"I said -" she begins.

"Hold it right there!" concludes one of the two metro security guards who have just now arrived on the scene.

"Crazy bitch tried to kill me!" shouts the pickpocket, who then beings to swear in the patois of English, Vietnamese and Cantonese so beloved of gang filmmakers.

"He's a pickpocket!" protests Sam as one of the guards pulls her up and off the perp, producing handcuffs as she does.

"We'll get this all sorted out -"

"She's telling the truth," interrupts Mary. She is standing in the doorway to the platform, looking at the scene without any real expression on her face. "I saw him. You'll probably find out he has priors if you run his description."

It's a mistake. She knows it, Sam knows it, everybody knows it - don't ever tell anyone how to do their job.

"Okay," says the older of the two guards at some length. "We'll do that. Why don't you come along with us, little lady?"

Mary shrugs. "Why not? I missed my train."

As they sit together in station security's holding area, Sam mutters, "Sorry."

"Yeah," says Mary. "Right."

What say we skip ahead about an hour, avoiding all the embarrassing questions? Rather, let us watch as the girls walk through the front gates of Robert A. Heinlein Academy of Learning, beneath the thirteen stripes and sixty stars of the United States of America. Passing through the school's deserted courtyard and into the foyer, they promptly encounter a man-eating tiger.

Well, perhaps that's unfair to Miss Watanabe. She is fierce, but that's a requisite of the position of school disciplinarian. As for the man-eating part, the rumor that she relaxes by seducing and emotionally devastating promising but politically unreliable students is probably just a wishful thinking on the part of less-than-promising students of a certain political disposition. But she certainly doesn't aid her reputation with her preference for all-black outfits and ridiculously short, _knee-length_ skirts, not to mention the occasional passing reference to the admirable policies of the Reich - their policies in educational matters, of course. And right now, the shape of her broad grin certainly does echo that of a predator.

"Miss Hazzard. Miss Tanner. So nice of you to join us. I presume that you have an explanation for your tardiness?"

Sam suppresses her by-now instinctive response - "It's not my fault!" - and silently hands her the note she requested from the guards, which explains the situation fully, if not in terms that she finds pleasant. Mary waits until Miss Watanabe finishes scanning Sam's note, and then hands the disciplinarian her own.

"I see," Miss Watanabe says a few moments later. "Very well, you may both proceed to your first classes. I will be contacting both your parents to inform them of this situation."

Sam starts to head off, but Mary stops her with a simple gesture. "May we have hall passes, Miss Watanabe?"

Miss Watanabe frowns on the request, but hands over the passes all the same. (As it turns out, they don't need them - the hall monitor is in the gym supply room, enjoying the company of a girl whom we will meet later.) This time, both of them turn to go, only to pause as Miss Watanabe speaks up again.

"It would be in your best interests, young ladies, to refrain from your careers of vigilantism during school hours."

Sam's hackles arise with the phrase, "in your best interest", but to her surprise it is Mary who speaks up, in a harsh tone. "I was a _witness_."

"Yes. Certainly. In your case, then, it would be in your best interest to carefully consider the character of your companions." (A passion for alliteration is one of Miss Watanabe's less endearing traits.) "You may go now."

They go. As soon as they are quite beyond her somewhat paranoid estimation of Miss Watanabe's hearing range, Mary hisses, "Don't say it."

"I'm s-"

"_Don't_. You've said it five ruddy times so far, and I'm getting sick of hearing it." An extended pause ensues. "You didn't mean to get me in trouble. Fine. You didn't. I didn't _have_ to stick around, you know."

"I know," Sam says, more than a little unsettled at the way this conversation - or monologue, maybe - is going.

"Fine," says Mary as they arrive at her locker. "Then just quit trying to take the blame for what I do or did! And another thing!" She turns and stares directly into Sam's face.

"Yes?" asks Sam when, after a moment, Mary hasn't said anything further."

She draws a deep breath. "Your locker's on the other side of the ruddy hallway!"

"Oh. Right!" Sam quickly scampers over to her own locker, to deposit her homework and pick up her books. As her back is turned, Mary directs a look of mingled, mangled despair and admiration towards her best friend.

Again, let us swiftly pass over various events of little or no interest (to the author, at least): classes, meetings between Sam and Mary and some of their other little friends (none of whom are important enough to the narrative to have names), lunch, more classes, Sam reading her book, Mary hanging around with fellow tobacco enthusiasts, and one or two more classes.

Our observation resumes at the end of the school day, as Sam and Mary reunite at the gates of the Academy, and start walking together towards the small shopping district that abuts the campus.

Mary grumbles over the amount of history reading they've been assigned. "I mean, does anyone care how Vancouver entered the Union? It was more than a hundred years ago! Who cares about the ruddy economic history of ... of ... of whatever it was called, back then -"

"British California," Sam supplies. "I've already gotten started."

"Yeah, but you're not normal," Mary quips.

This is safe ground, where neither of them will be hurt by their remarks. Sam is okay with being teased about her enjoyment of knowledge for its own sake, and Mary has long since become inured to Sam's subtle attempts to improve her study habits.

"It's really kind of interesting," Sam insists. "You can even argue that it set the precedent for -"

Case in point. "Lemme get there at my own pace, okay?"

"All right."

In any event, they've reached their destination, and Mary makes her first purchase - from one of the vending machines set up in front of a laundromatic. She savors the taste of Dr. Pepper as they walk the rest of the distance towards the bookstore.

"To answer your question," announces the somewhat rotund manager-clerk as the bell chimes to announce their entrance," yes, the new releases have arrived. No food or drink in the store." The last is directed at Mary. She shrugs and heads out again to finish her drink (and perhaps have another smoke.)

Sam slowly walks down the pair of aisles that make up the store, both sides lined with the month's new light novels. She examines the covers of the anthologies: _Amazing_ and _Fantastic_; _Thrilling_ and _Chilling_; _Weird_ and _Wonder_; even _Harlequin_ and _Silhouette_. They remain the backbone of the industry, even though character-focused titles form most of its skeleton: _Doctor Savage_, _The Shadow_, _Gladiator_, _The Black Bat_, _The Golden Amazon_, _Spider_, _Tony Stark_, _Ka-Zar_, _Doctor Doom_, _The Mutants_, _Prince Arn_, _Archie_, _Star Trek_, and Sam's personal favorite, _The Avengers_. Even if it wasn't the series that taught her to love reading, she'd pick up this particular month's edition. It's set in Japan, and as the current writer has shown a talent for presenting "exotic" locations realistically, Sam is curious to see how she does with Sam's home state. She also considers picking up the new _Conan_, but decides that her budget can't stretch that far.

After paying for her purchase, she heads out to find that Mary has already started window-shopping at a nearby jeweler. Sam joins her, and they murmur about the various stones. Mary almost whimpers as she gazes at a ring set with her ruby birthstone, elegantly sculpted so that the stone appears to be held between the heads of an amphisbaena, clutched tightly in their teeth. The price tag would be more than a decade's worth of her allowances. Eventually, she tears her eyes away from it, and suggests to Sam that they ought to move on.

Possibly seeking to further distract herself from the memory of the ring, Mary's footsteps guide her to the video bazaar. Here she and Sam part company; while Sam would normally be happy to play a game of chess with one of the tanks, she figures that it's time to head home. Bidding Mary farewell (and arranging to meet at the usual time tomorrow), Sam sets off for the train station.

She walks alone down the sidewalk for several minutes, reading her book and enjoying the beautiful artwork and thrilling prose, when suddenly she realizes that she's not alone. Sam pauses, and slowly turns around to see the person who's following her.

At first there's a sense of relief; it's a woman, only a few years older than Sam herself, rather than a man. Then a certain amount of concern returns. Her purply black hair and very intense, almost unblinking stare both suggest a type of person with whom Sam isn't in any particular hurry to associate. Something about her tugs at the memory, though.

Sam decides to take the obvious step. "Can I help you?"

The woman nods once, and then speaks. "Yesss." It comes out as more of a sigh, or an exhalation of pleasure, than as a hiss. "In fact," she says in the same, slightly airy tone, "you already have."

"I have?" Sam asks dubiously.

"You helped me get my wallet back."

All at once, Sam remembers her. She was one of the people on the platform that morning, who had been hit by the pickpocket. "I see that you *do* remember," the woman says as recognition hits Sam. "Thank you so much, Miss Tsukamura."

"You're welcome," Sam starts to say, but the words smash into the wall formed by the freezing of her smile, as how she's just been addressed registers. It has been nearly eight years since she last heard her biological father's last name ... and it has never been applied to her.

"That is your name, isn't it? Samantha Allison Tsukamura?"

"No," Sam replies, more evenly than she feels.

"But it's the name on your birth certificate." The words aren't a protest as much as a reminder.

Sam has performed some simple arithmetic. Adding knowledge of private documents to the sum of a focus on her biological father and a decidedly sinister manner produces a horrible suspicion that this person is someone with a grudge against him. And there are some unpleasant people associated with Walter Tsukamura. Every one of Sam's instincts urges her to run.

She stands her ground. "What do you want with me?"

"A number of things," the punkish woman replies, taking a step towards her. "But nothing which should be discussed so ... publicly. Shall we -"

"I'm not going anywhere with you, whoever you are." Her words are flat, hard and final. She is already running tactics of escape and flight through her head.

The woman blinks for the first time that Sam has noticed. "Verrry well," she says after a moment. "I shan't force anything on you. But I will be seeing you again. For the recorrrd ... my name is Rune."

With that, she turns and walks away, her hips swaying almost exaggeratedly.

Sam waits a moment, letting her heartbeat slow to normal levels, feeling the adrenaline drain away - and then, with that done, she turns and runs for the train station.

She is still running when she bursts through the front door of her home fifteen minutes later. (Of course, still isn't quite the right term; she didn't run while on the train itself.) Mother comes down the stairs with a startled expression; she has heard both the door slamming shut and her eldest daughter breathing heavily.

"Goodness, Sam, what's wrong?"

Sam quickly summarizes her encounter with the woman who called herself Rune - though as he does so, she realizes that the name given actually used the odd, native Japanese sound that can be either "r" or "l". She doesn't speculate on what that might mean.

Mother grows tense when she hears the mention of her first husband's family name, and interrupts Sam to give a more detailed description of the woman. Whatever she fears - and she has a very specific, very great cause for fear - the description doesn't provide it. This eases her fears a bit, but only a bit.

"All right," Mother says in the end. "I don't think we ought to call this one in right away."

"But -"

"They wouldn't be able to do anything, Sam. All they'd do is run the description you gave through the library. That could take hours. If something came up ... well, the agency might try to bring her in, depending on what else this person has done. But if she's new, or if she was wearing a disguise, then ..." Mother shrugs expressively.

Sam hates this. She hates feeling so scared and small and helpless. But she know that Mother wouldn't make a decision like this unless she was sure of it, and so she just lets out a sigh. "Okay."

"But if you see her again, that's a different story," Mother continues. "It only takes two incidents to make a pattern, and if we can show a pattern -"

Sam nods understanding. "I hope I don't, though."

"Me too." Mother steeples her hands in front of her and lets out a deep breath. "Okay. We don't know when your father will be back, so dinner may not be until six. Can you keep yourself occupied until then? Diane headed off to the community pool -"

"I've got homework," she replies. "I'll get started on it."

"All right."

Sam heads for the stairway, hoping against hope that -

"But about the phone call I got this morning ..."

She turns to look at Mother, silently bracing herself.

Mother, her arms folded under her breasts, just looks at her for a long moment. "If you don't want to talk about it right this minute, we don't have to. But we _do_ need to address it soon, Samantha. This is going far beyond -"

"I was just trying to do the right thing!" Sam protests. No, let's be honest. Sam yells.

"Don't shout at me," Mother says, very calmly. "That, in particular, is never the right thing. No dessert tonight."

Sam has no answer to that, and so she turns and marches to her room, closing - not slamming, that would just make matters worse - her door behind her. She dumps her satchel on the desk and slides into a slouch in her chair. Opening it up, she pulls out first her History text, then her new _Avengers_ novel. Neither of them seems very interesting, though, not at the moment.

Sam gets up long enough to walk over to the bed and lie down, staring up at the ceilling. From time to time, her eyes shift across the ceilling to the window; at this angle, she can only see the deep blue of the sky.

What, she thinks as she has often thought, would it be like to fly? It would make so many things so much easier. It would be like swimming without feeling the water pressing against you, without needing to hold your breath, without the wetness to take away from the warmth of the sun.

She closes her eyes for a moment, embracing the fantasy.

When she opens them, the window is open.

_That_ makes her sit up in bed, wondering how it can possibly have occured ... which in turn allows her the correct perspective to see the cat sitting on the window sill, returning her wide-eyed stare. The cat - Sam knows nothing of breeds and their technical terminology - hs vivid purple-black hair, and eyes that seem almost as hypnotic as a snake out of a fable.

"I told you," the cat says in Rune's voice, "that I would be seeing you again soon, Samantha."

Nearly half an hour after the cat starts to talk to Sam, Mary returns to her apartment complex home after a profitable afternoon playing games and flirting with the cute bazaar attendant. She lets herself in, unlocking the several locks and bolts with the special master key and touch pad. At first, she takes the darkness and stillness inside the two bedroom apartment to mean that her mother hasn't gotten home yet from her job on the cleanup crew of a large shoplex downtown; not all that surprising.

But then she hears a thumping noise from her mother's bedroom.

"Mom?" she asks, not certain what she'll do if someone answers in the negative.

Her mother steps unsteadily out of the darkened doorway to her room, one arm tightly holding onto her stomach, and a pale, drawn expression on her face. She swallows visibly, before saying in a hoarse voice, "I don't feel too good."

"What's wrong?" Mary asks, feeling a surge of anxiety. "What happened?"

Her mother shakes her head. "I dunno. But I think ... I think I may need to go to a doctor. Can you give me a hand?"

"Sure, Mom!" Mary says quickly, not thinking that it's strange that her fiercely self-reliant mother would wait for Mary's help before heading to the doctor. She is afraid now - afraid of her mother's sickness, afraid of suddenly losing the only parent she's ever known, and the fear gets in the way of her judgment.

Her mother takes another step, stumbles and almost falls forward, but Mary quickly reaches out to catch her. Her mother's hands rest on Mary's shoulders, and the daughter is somewhat startled at how heavy the mother seems.

She smiles wanly. "Thank you, sweetie."

Mary stares. Her mother never calls her sw-

The hands slither up from her shoulders to wrap around her neck in a grip of iron.

Sam's reaction to a talking cat is typical of a girl who enjoys fantasy of all kinds, yet has always regarded it as an escape rather than anything which could ever intrude into her life. She stares at the obviously impossible phenomenon and waits for the dream to get interesting.

The cat returns the stare evenly. "If you're trying to banish me by sheer will, you can save yourself the energy. It won't work."

Sam refuses to state the obvious, that this can't be happening. It obviously is, but it is so far beyond her experience or imagination that she is unable to formulate or implement any strategy for dealing with it.

"Perhaps it will be easier if I appear like this," says the cat, and something shifts in her form that causes Sam to blink - after which she sees the woman Rune sitting on the windowsill, her crossed feet resting on the floor of Sam's room.

She opens her mouth in preparation for a scream.

"If you yell for your mother," interrupts Rune, "I'll shift again and be out the window before she gets up here, and she'll think you're making up stories. Is that what you want?"

Sam clasps her mouth in a frown. "Why have you followed me here?" she asks tersely after a moment.

"Believe it or don't, I've come to help you. I watched your ... difficulties with the guards, and I overheard your conversation with your mother. You have an urge to right wrongs, and a fervent desire to help good triumph over evil. Correct?"

Sam just glares.

"I'll take that as a yes." Rune leans forward. "The problem is, you don't have the capacity to defeat the great wrongs, but your efforts to deal with those you can handle have not been well-received. What I'm offering you is a greater ability to do what you already want to do, and knowledge of a threat which you can only prevent with the power -"

"Threat?" Sam interrupts. "What threat?"

Rune gazes at her levelly. "There are those, in this world and on it, who do not wish your kind well, Samantha. One particular band of such creatures has begun to operate in this city. If they are not stopped -"

"Why haven't _you_ done something, or warned someone, if you know about this?"

The woman makes a very feline hissing noise. "Who would I warn? The municipal guard? `Oh dear, officers, terrible monsters are about to rampage through the city! How do I know this, you ask? Why, I'm a magical shapechanging cat, so naturally you ought to believe everything I say!' And if I showed them, I'd end up cut to pieces in a laboratory somewhere. No thank you."

"But why haven't you tried to do some-"

"I'm a cat! I know a few tricks, but I'm not any sort of war wizard." Rune sighs. "I have a device in my possession which will allow you to do what must be done, but it's no use to me. Only a certain type of person can use this pendant - and that's where you come in." She pulls the pendant from behind her back: a golden-looking amulet on a chain with a heart emblem and a moonstone set in its center.

Sam stares at it for a long, confused moment. Something in her wants to reach out with her hand and take the pendant - and the oddest thing is, that something feels like the part of her that exults in the chase. Perhaps it is just that she wants to believe Rune's words, and she knows that if they are true -

She lets out a breath. Thinking of Rune as a possible deceiver helps her to form her next question. "What's in it for you, if I decide to do this?"

"Suspicious, aren't you?"

Sam says nothing; she looks at Rune, awaiting an answer.

The cat-woman sighs. "Look at me for a moment, will you? Really look."

Sam does so, noticing the dust and grime that covers her pumps, the fraying threads and missing buttons on her skirt and blouse, the absence of any cosmetics on her face ... and then the chips and breaks in Rune's long fingernails.

"You're a vagabond," she says at last.

Again, the hiss. "No, I'm a _cat_. When I'm in my normal form, I can do things that make it fairly easy to find food, but there's not a lot I can do about shelter. I don't have anything but the clothes on my back when I'm shifted into human form, and so given the choice between working for a living and being fed by a caring person -"

"You think I'm going to adopt you as a pet?"

"I think you don't have a choice. I know about what you'll be facing ... do you really want to go in blind?" Abruptly, Rune shifts back into her cat form, lifts a paw to her mouth and begins to lap at it. "I'll need tuna daily, of course, and milk. Catnip is certainly pleasant, but I'll -"

"You'll get cat food and water," Sam comments as she picks up the pendant. It's much lighter than she expected, though she soberly realizes that she has no idea what it's made of, and so no reason to "expect" anything. "How does this thing work?"

Rune stares at her, clearly nonplussed, and then devotes a great deal of attention to licking her paw.

"I said, how do I -"

"Tuna." At the sight of the fierce look on Sam's face, the cat hastily elaborates. "Not every day, but maybe from time to time you could -"

"All right," Sam interrupts. "Now tell me."

"Put the chain around your neck."

Sam does so, but uneasily, as though she expects the pendant to bite her.

"Now, say the words - moon prism power ... make-up."

"... `make-up'?"

"I didn't craft the thing, all right?"

"All right," Sam sighs, and draws a deep breath before saying "Moon -"

And all at once, something is different. No, not a definable something, but everything. Everything is more there, more solid, more real, as though she'd been watching televideo and was suddenly there at the place it displayed. It isn't just sight, but the scent of herself and the feel of the air around her and the sound of her voice saying, "- Prism -"

And it's different again, but now the difference is in her, as she feels herself filling with energy, just as she does in the moment before the starter's pistol fires. But the tension between her current state and the state that she'll experience when the moment ends has never been greater, and yet not a hint of this can be heard in the word "- Power-"

And then her mind is all confusion and tumult, and for a terrible moment she loses herself in the welter of possibilities that she can be, that she can become, that she might have been. But then herself returns, or she finds it again, even as the final words pass her lips. "- Make-Up!"

And she explodes.

Or so it seems. For the first instant she wonders at the repetition of the earlier loss, but then she realizes that what is gone is not herself, but any sense of body - and that this is what she imagined when she dreamed of flight. Though she never imagined that she would be flying through skies of every color and none, in a light warmer than the sun's but without any sensation of burning.

She comes to know, gradually, that she is not alone in this place, but what is with her cannot be perceived save as a shadow or a reflection of her, even though in observing it she feels that she is its shadow, its reflection. She knows that it is waiting for her to ask a question, and she knows what it must be.

"Who are you?"

"I am thy True Self. Unite with me."

The space is filled with music of the spheres as they become one.

Sam returns to a normal level of consciousness after a time she cannot measure. (When she eventually examines her clock, she will estimate that it as less than a minute.) She feels different, but not as different as she felt when it was happening.

Reflexively, Sam lifts her hands to her line of sight and realizes, to her bemusement, that she is wearing elbow-length gloves. Fashioned out of some white material with red striping at the elbows, they are so light that she had no idea they existed until she saw them. The rest of her arms, up to her shoulders, are bare. Looking down at her body reveals that she is wearing -

Sam flings open the door to her room and dashes as silently as she can to the bathroom. There, she stares into the mirror, her face aghast. It is with great effort that she holds in a scream.

She runs back across the hallway, praying all the way that Mother won't look out of her bedroom. She begins to stare and sputter incoherently at the cat.

"What? What?" Rune asks, clearly startled.

"Look. At. My. Skirt!"

Rune looks at the hip-length skirt, and then looks at Sam. "What's wrong with it?"

"It's _short_!" she wails quietly. "It ... it ... anyone can see my undergarments!"

Rune takes another look, and Sam frantically tries to pull the skirt down further to prevent her from doing so. "Not really," the cat comments after a moment. "It's more of a swimsuit than -"

"I do not wear a swimsuit outside of a swimming pool, where no one can see me but other girls! What is this thing?"

Relieved to be on firmer ground, Rune begins to lecture. "Apparently, the pendant actualizes your self-image, drawing on certain universal images of -"

"My self-image is a slut? Is that what you're telling me?"

"I don't recall having said that," Rune says evenly.

"Nobody wears skirts this short! The harlots they arrest on _Guardians_ wear more than this! And what's wrong with my voice?" she snaps, suddenly realizing that it has become at least an octave higher.

"Do you think that women who have a higher voice than you do are more feminine?" the cat wonders aloud.

Sam stares at the cat with her mouth hanging open, as though she has run out of words without realizing it.

"Well, that got your attention at least. Now look," she continues sharply. "Assuming all goes well, the only people who'll see you aren't going to care about your clothes or your voice, or anything else but how your insides taste! Now can we please work on the problem of how to fight them?"

Sam takes another deep breath, and nods once. "All right. What do I do first - start looking for signs of evil? It's a big city, and I'm not even sure what I ought to be looking for..."

"I think we can start a little more easily than that. Since you were chosen to seek them out ... I suspect that one of your talents will involve a talent for finding them with magic."

"So how would that work?"

"I'm improvising here!" Rune replies to the edge in Sam's question. "But ... try closing your eyes and imagining the city as a map. It might help to have a real map, actually..."

Sam reluctantly closes her eyes and makes a picture of her hometown's layout in her mind's eye. It's fairly easy, as she always did well in civics.

"Now, just let yourself go. Don't deliberately look at any part of the map, but if something about it draws your attention, follow that instinct. It should lead you to -"

Sam finds it difficult to listen to the cat's sage advice as she - or at least her perspective - has begun to tumble towards the map's surface. As it comes up to meet her, she is startled to see that the streets have grown buildings - three-dimensional representations of buildings that resemble images out of a three-dimensional video game that Mary enjoys. The instant her perspective reaches street level, it continues to fall, but across the map's surface instead of towards it. It is like driving the streets, but faster than any car goes and able to make sharp, ninety-and-more degree turns.

Almost as quickly as it begins, it ends as Sam arrives in front of a shoplex somewhere in the bay area. This is when Sam knows beyond any doubt that whatever this experience is, it's not an imagination inspired by any video game. No game designer born could create the terribly organic hole that rests on the side of the image of the building's wall, pulsing slightly.

"What is that thing?" Sam hears herself gasp.

"Just as a guess, it's probably where the creature emerged. You can -"

She is flying across the map again, and guesses that she is following the creature's trail. Again, she stops suddenly when she "arrives" in front of a housing complex.

"And this is where it is now?"

The cat pauses, and then continues somewhat more hesitantly. "Yes ... almost certainly. It will probably take over the body of someone who was nearby when it emerged, and then started spreading chaos that way."

Sam only half-hears that. "This is where Mary lives," she mutters, feeling herself work though the logic. "And she told me ... that her mother ... works at a ... oh no." Her eyes snap open, and she whirls to look at Rune. "Can I fly?"

"Do you have wings?"

"Then I guess that we're running!" Sam says as she grabs the cat, and jumps out the open window.

She's done it before, of course. There's a little edge of roof a foot or so out of the house's first storey, running underneath her window, that drops the distance to the ground down to about eight feet. That's not much of a drop, especially if one is prepared. Sam's plan is to hit the ground running. What she doesn't expect is how lightly she lands, nor how easily she rebounds into another leap that carries her up to the neighbor's roof.

"How did I do that?" she gasps.

"Off hand, I'd say magic," replies Rune in strangled tones. "I said you couldn't fly. You never asked about leaping around like a luna-"

"Right," Sam says, excited and pleased, as travelling high up will keep people from getting a good look at her (and, more importantly, how she's dressed.) She starts to run again, jumping from rooftop to rooftop. If anyone on the street below notices her, she doesn't realize it - no shouts or catcalls echo up at her.

The early evening air is crisp and cool, and the sensation of moving through it is almost enough to make her forget the situation for herself and (she fears) for Mary. But the sight of the apartment complex brings it all back, and she hesitates before dropping down to street level and dashing into the deserted foyer.

Sam stabs the call button for Mary's unit repeatedly with her finger, and waits anxiously for a response from the speaker. When, after a few minutes, nothing has come, she nearly panics. Even if she can do it, breaking down the security doors will attract a lot of attention, and she'll have to break down the door to Mary's unit itself, which will draw even more, and -

Suddenly, an alternative appears in her mind. Dashing back out onto the sidewalk, she looks up the side of the building, remembering the sight of Mary waving goodbye from the window on the sixth floor, and finds it. She draws a deep breath, and settles into a crouch.

"Oh no," says Rune as she divines Sam's intent. "You're not serious."

"Gladiator does this sort of thing all the time. So does Steve Austin."

"I don't know who those people arrrrrrrrr!" Rune howls as Sam jumps.

She only has to reach up to about eighty feet above ground level. Sam focuses all her will into whatever sort of magic she's been using so far, striving for more lift. When the rail of the unit's small balcony is level with her nose, her left hand snakes out to grab hold of it. She's actually a bit startled at how inertia keeps pulling her upward, almost wrenching her shoulder and elbow as she arcs over the railing to land - not terribly gracefully, but without injury - on the balcony.

Of course, the screen door is closed, and can't be opened from the outside.

"Open it," Sam snaps at Rune.

"What -"

"Like you opened my window! Hurry!"

Rune looks intently at the door. A moment later, it slides open. Sam drops the cat to the balcony's floor and dashes into the main living area to behold the horrific scene of Mary's mother, her eyes glowing red and foam dripping from her mouth, strangling Mary. Her best friend is struggling, but weakly.

"LET GO OF HER. NOW."

For the first moment, Sam wonders who said that. For the second moment, Sam wonders when she developed such a voice. Then the creature's grip slackens as it turns towards her, and Mary desperately kicks out, pushing herself out of its grip, and there is no more time for wondering.

The words are bubbling out of her mouth so quickly that she can barely register them. "How dare you take this woman's seeming and abuse it so, to harm the daughter that she loves. Were it within me, I would punish you with firey torment, I would immure you in frigid ice, I would rain down thunder upon you, I would make your name a half-forgotten memory. Yet these are not mine. All that I may do is all that I shall do: I cast you out of this place, by light of the Sun, and the warmth of the Earth, and by the Moon who is their daughter - but more, by the one behind them whose name we do not know. I cast you out. BEGONE!"

For a horrible second after the words have flown from her mouth, the creature in Mary's mother's skin just stares at her. Were the words just words then, she thinks confusedly, but if they were, where did they come -

It tilts backward, curving its spine into an arc as it howls at the ceilling. As Sam and Mary watch from separate sides of the room, it seems that a sickly green gas is being expelled from the woman's mouth and nostrils, and that it continues to hang in the air for a moment after the scream ends. Yet it dissipates as she collapses to the floor.

For a moment, Sam bids fit to imitate her, as exhaustion falls on her - much to her surprise, as nothing she has done has seemed very difficult. She keeps her footing, but the struggle to do so keeps her standing still as Mary half-crawls, half-stumlbles to where her mother lies motionless.

"Mom?" she asks. Then again, more desperately: "Mom?"

"Check for a p-"

"Shut up!" Mary roars as she fumbles with her mother's wrist. "She's ... she's alives, she's ... probably just tired, or, or, or hurt -"

"Mary, call an ambulance," Sam says, taking a step towards them.

"Stay back!" her best friend snaps.

Sam retreats, confused by Mary's reactions. Doesn't she recognize her? The costume isn't anything Sam would ever wear, true, but it doesn't make her look that different ... or does it? She shoots a look at Rune, who returns it with an unreadable cat expression.

"You just ... stay the hell back," Mary says as she gets up from the floor and slowly walks to the telephone on the wall, never taking her eyes off Sam for a second. She quickly dials 411, and says in a voice that's gaining steadiness quickly, "My name is Mary Tanner, there's been a break-in at my apartment building ... my mother's been hurt. I think she needs an ambulance ... and I need to talk to the police."

"Perhaps we should leave," Rune says softly.

"And animal control," Mary adds, turning to stare at the cat.

Sam holds out her arms and Rune quickly jumps into them. "Mary, I don't know just what's going on here, but believe me, I'm going to -"

"Tall girl with bright blonde hair, in some sort of ... weird get-up, blonde hair, with two long pigtails -" Mary says to the Emergency Services Operator.

Sam turns then, and dashes to the window. Without hesitation, she leaps over the edge of the balcony. Dropping six stories to the ground, she lands like a feather and ducks into an alleyway.

"Why didn't she recognize me?" she demands of Rune as she sets the cat down on the ground.

"I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know!"

"I don't know why she didn't recognize you, all you humans look the same to me!"

"She said I have pigtails! I don't have pigtails! What -"

"I said that I don't know, how many times do you want me to repeat myself?"

"Fine! What happened to her mother? I got rid of the creature, so why did she just ... fall over, like that?"

Rune doesn't seem quite able to meet Sam's eyes. "Well, the creature - this particular kind of creature, anyway - is an energy eater. Just because you dispersed it, that doesn't mean that the energy it consumed will just go flying back to its source. I mean, if I ate a mouse -"

"All right," Sam says, calming down a bit. "How do I change back to normal?"

"I don't know." Rune seems depressed to once more be on unfirm ground.

"I don't believe this! I can't wander around looking like this - especialy not now that there's an all-points bulletin with my description!"

"Well, try thinking of a switch, and visualize turning it off!" snaps Rune.

Amazingly, that works.

"Of course," the cat muses as she watches Sam looking at herself in her original clothes once more, "that does raise the question of how you're going to get home before anyone notices you're missing."

Sam lets out a long sigh. "I think that's a lost hope. Just ... you said that I dispersed that thing, right? That means that it's gone for good - it's not going to pop up again tomorrow, or next week, or something?"

"No, you killed it." Rune notes that Sam doesn't flinch at her bluntness, and files that fact away for later. "But ..."

"But what?"

Rune considers, then answers calmly. "But there are thousands more creatures just like that one working for the Dark Kingdom, and they aren't one of the more powerful kinds there."

"Oh." Sam tries to wrap her mind around that thought, and then a question occurs to her. "How do you -"

"- know that?" Rune shifts to her human form, and looks at her with an expression only slightly more legible than it might be on a cat. "I used to work for them myself."

"What?"

"Some other time," the woman answers - or doesn't answer, really - as she starts walking out of the alley.

"What - wait a minute, you said you'd be living with me."

"Changed my mind."

"What about your tuna?"

Rune makes a hacking noise that prompts Sam to draw back. "I'll drop in, from time to time. But I am a cat who walks by herself ... and I'll not be beholden to anyone. You'll see me again, Samantha. Soon."

And then she's gone. Sam stands still for a few moments, and then starts to walk home herself.

There aren't any real reprecussions when she gets home. While Mother is a bit upset that she wan't informed before Sam went out (and a bit perplexed that she didn't hear it) she's distracted from following up on it when Father arrives home just a few minutes after they sit down to dinner.

Moreover, Father is too tired from his day - a very bad day, and one that he can never discuss with his wife or children - to deal with Sam's continued troubles. Tomorrow, he thinks, having been promised a day off.

So Sam goes to bed at 9:30 PM, and sleeps unquietly as she dreams of what her transformation felt like.

Somewhere - but we don't know where, not yet - a gray-haired woman in a brown leotard and cape watches an animated, three dimensional image projected from a crystal in her hand. It displays everything that happened in a certain apartment room from the time a fiend-ridden woman began to strangle her child to the time that a disguised champion of justice leaped out the window. She is smiling as she watches.

The next day is much like the last day, though Sam is awake and downstairs before Diane. She turns down Father's offer to drive her to school before she considers that Mary might not be able to meet her this morning. Then she remembers that she wouldn't know that ... and begins to wonder if secrecy is the best policy. Still undecided, she heads off for school.

Mary is waiting at the bus stop, looking as though she hasn't slept a wink and, for once, not smoking.

"Mary, what's wrong?" Sam asks, trying to sound startled and feeling like a complete hypocrite.

"My mom ... something weird happened last night, and she's in the hospital. I just came from there."

"Is she all right?"

From Mary's expression, Sam guesses that she's holding back a number of sarcastic comments. "Well, she's awake now, but she's not really ... _there_, yet."

"Oh." Sam hasn't the slightest idea what she ought to say to that. "Are you all right? Where are you staying?"

"I told the hospital that my gran would come and stay with me at our place."

"But your grandmother's dead."

"They don't know that."

There's not much Sam can say to that. They reach the train station and board the train without further incident. As they sit down together, Sam pulls out a notebook and a pencil, and begins to silently sketch.

"What're you drawing?" Mary asks after a few minutes.

"I ... thought it might be interesting to design some fashions."

"Lemme see."

Willing to accept any distraction from her own problems, she peers around to look at Sam's work. There's something vaguely familiar about the amulet that features prominently in the designs, but Mary can't quite place it.

"Nice skirts," she says at last. "A little shapeless on the blouse, but nice. Why a headband?"

"It's more of a tiara, actually -"

A sudden shout causes them both to look up as a grungy-looking girl jumps off the train as it comes to a stop, carrying a purse that's much too good for her close to her chest. Further back, an older woman is shouting at the people in her way of her own exit in pursuit of the purse snatcher.

Sam and Mary watch this silently, but Mary is surprised to see Sam turn away first and return to her drawing.

"Aren't you going to try and do something?"

Sam doesn't meet her eyes. "Not really a lot I can do, is there?"

"Well, no, but ... I mean ... are you okay?"

She does, now.

"Yes. But I think I have more important things to worry about, now."

And on they go.


	3. Chapter 2

_Some say the world will end in fire; _  
_Some say in ice. _  
_From what I've tasted of desire _  
_I hold with those who favor fire. _  
_But if it had to perish twice, _  
_I think I know enough of hate _  
_To know that for destruction ice _  
_Is also great _  
_And would suffice._

- Robert Frost, "Fire and Ice"

**May 15, 1992**

At 6:47:06, Lara Kulenkov's eyes slide open as consciousness returns to her. For eight minutes, she simply lies in bed, surrounded by lace and ruffles and a faint scent of perfume. At that point, she sits up and slides her feet into her slippers, and walks out of her room to go down for breakfast.

The Bitch is already at the table, nibbling at a waffle. "Good morning, dear," she says insincerely as she sees Lara arrive. "Would you like some -"

Lara walks past her without acknowledging her existence, much less her words, and goes into the kitchen. She removes two slices of white bread from the bread bag and places them in the toastmaker. As they cook, she gets a jar of milk and a squeeze-bottle of cherry jelly out of the refrigerator. Her motions precise, she reaches the counter and takes a spreading blade from the utensil drawer just as the freshly made toast pops up.

She returns to the dining room, plate of toast and glass of milk in hand, and sits down opposite The Bitch. Not bothering with a meaningless prayer, she begins to eat.

The Bitch watches her for several moments before speaking again. "I really wish you'd talk to me," she says with transparently false concern and sorrow. "It seems like only yesterday that -"

Lara finishes her toast, swallows the last of the milk in a gulp, and takes the plate and the glass back to the kitchen, rinsing them to let the roar of running water drown out whatever else The Bitch might say. That done, she turns and goes back upstairs to bathe.

For half an hour, she soaks in the tub, trying to recapture the warmth of last night's dream. Mommy and Daddy had both been there, and it had been wonderful. But reality is cold, and it is all the fault of That Bitch.

Eventually, as clean as she is likely to get, she exits the tub and walks naked to her own room. There she quickly dresses in the uniform expected of a student at Heinlein Academy, omitting only a few minor garments and adding the two sapphire earrings that Daddy gave her when she was twelve. They are not permitted by the school's dress code, but she has found ways around that.

Appropriately dressed, for the most part, Lara picks up a satchel and walks back down the stairs, this time turning to the main door that leads out of the house to the outside world. She presses the call button on the transceiver mounted beside the doorway, and waits.

After a moment, a voice replies. "Yes Ma'am?"

"Bring the car around, Chou," she says calmly.

"Yes Ma'am."

She becomes aware that The Bitch is standing several feet behind her, and therefore opens the door and walks out beneath the pillar-supported roof of the entrance to the mansion to wait. The Bitch follows, of course, but at a safe distance. Chou drives the long, black car up to the door a few moments later. He steps out to open the passenger door, and Lara enters the air-conditioned cabin.

As Chou is climbing back into the driver's seat, Lara turns to look directly at The Bitch for the first time that day. Encouraged by this, The Bitch speaks up, just loud enough to be heard through the bulletproof glass windows and over the engine's low rumble. "Take care at school, and -"

"Bitch," she says. It's impossible that she was heard, but the almost credible look of hurt on The Bitch's face tells her that her lips were accurately read.

"Where to, Ma'am?"

It's a formality. Regardless of what she might say, Chou will deliver her to the school gates and observe that she enters them. She has no power to compel him otherwise, as The Bitch pays his salary, nor is she likely to persuade him. Therefore, she answers, "School." They pull away, leaving The Bitch in the dust where she belongs.

Roughly twenty minutes later, they arrive at the Academy's gates. "Thank you, Chou," she says as she steps out. It never hurts to butter up the menials. "I may be late departing this afternoon, so please await my call."

"Yes Ma'am," Chou replies, but Lara has already started to walk towards the front doors, passing by that pair of a blonde and a rouge who are usually joined at the hip whenever she sees them. (We know that they're Sam and Mary, but she doesn't.) She pauses to bestow a pleasant smile on Miss Watanabe, who responds with the cold expression of a shark examining a succulent human appetizer from behind a transparent aluminum barrier. It puts a bit of lift in her step as she heads for her locker.

Lara briefly considers which of her classes merit taking books. A throat-clearing noise beside her draws her attention away from such trivia, to the tall form of Dieter Marcinko, one of the school football team's second string. For some reason, he seems nervous.

"Yes?" she asks calmly.

"Uh," he replies. "Um. Well ... I heard from ... some of the guys on the team that you were ... available, I mean, not seeing anyone right now. So ... are you doing anything? Tonight, I mean?"

Pathetic. Still, she has a weak spot for that sort. So she smiles, runs a hand through her long, black hair and says, "Yes, sorry. But listen: the gym supply room is usually left unlocked. Meet me there in sixth period, and I'll give you what you really want."

"Uh." His eyes both resemble the plate she used for toast this morning. "I ... got a class then."

fLifting the hand that she used on her hair, she brushes his cheek delicately. "Cut it."

He backs away, shivering visibly, and turns to rush away.

"Everyone on the team will know within minutes if you chicken out."

He stands stock still for a moment, then walks away stiffly. She'll see him again. It should make for a relaxing sixth period.

_Elsewhere_

It has been a long few weeks for Sam.

Since that first night, she has tried to sense for invasions every evening. On the best days, she hasn't sensed anything, and has been able change back to normal in the privacy of her own room. Slightly more unpleasant days have seen her forced to head out and deal with people possessed by things from the Dark Kingdom. Thus far, there haven't been any very bad days - ones where the victim dies after she "frees" them, or has killed other innocents - nor any embarrassing episodes involving the police.

She yawns discreetly while listening to Mr. Abrabanel's algebra lecture. The entire situation is definitely taking a toll on her nerves. She has been this tired before, but never with such an absence of any feeling of accomplishment. She is caught in a holding action, and the moment the enemy starts sending multiple possessors, it will turn into a rout.

Sam needs more intelligence, and Rune may be her only source for it. But she hasn't seen the cat-shapechanger since that first night. That makes her a bit uneasy, especially given Rune's confession about her former association. She doesn't even know why Rune defected, if that's the right word.

The class winds down, and Mr. Abrabanel closes with, "As I'm sure you're all eager to head down to the bulletin board and find out which of your exams you'll need to write ... class dismissed.

With those magic words in the air, everyone quickly files out of the classroom, demonstrating the teacher's sage grasp of their priorities. In the main foyer of the Academy, there are at least thirty sheets of tables stapled to a large bulletin board. Indexed by student numbers, the tables indicate those students who have accumulated a grade of ninety-five percent or higher on their class work in a given subject, thus exempting them from writing that course's final exam. Theoretically, the use of student numbers ensures confidentiality despite the public nature of the posting. In practice, since each number has only four digits, it's quite common for students to memorize the numbers of their friends and colleagues - and not unknown for them to learn those of their rivals. The posting of exemptions, then, has become a social event.

Mary is already at the front of the small mob gathered in the foyer, and beckons for Sam to join her. (By a quirk of the system, there are only four numbers between theirs.) "How did you do?" Sam asks as she reaches her friend's position.

Mary shrugs. "I'm writing everything, as usual. Probably got my highest mark in Homecare, and nobody gets exempted in that."

"I'm glad I didn't take Homecare -"

"Not as glad as the rest of us."

Sam mock-glares at Mary, then turns to look at the row of X's following her own number. "Well, I'm writing English, Geometry, Geography and Physics ... not bad, I guess, but -"

"Excuse me."

Icicles tremble down Sam's spine as she turns around to look at the pale, blue-eyed brunette behind her. And for the life of her, she can't figure out why.

"Could you let me past, please?" the girl asks, in tones which suggest that this clarification of her original request is entirely unnecessary.

"Oh, sure." Sam steps out of the way to let the girl (whom we, of course, know to be Lara) walk between Mary and herself. Mary frowns at Lara as she passes, as though trying to place her face.

Lara does something odd, now. She walks up close to the board, rests a carefully manicured index fingernail on the list of numbers, and moves her nail down until it reaches her own. Then she moves it across the row of X's; all ten of them, for all ten of the classes that she's taking. The oddity is the fact that she does so in such a way that anyone behind her, such as Sam and Mary, can see and understand that fact as easily as she can.

She turns around then, and favors Sam with a brief smile. "Thank you," she says, and walks out the way she came in.

Sam is too amazed to reply. "Ten exemptions?"

"That's who she is," Mary comments in a tone of sudden comprehension.

"You know her?"

Mary starts to lead Sam out of the crowd, apparently suppressing an immediate response that she finds very amusing. "Only by reputation. You miss out on a lot, not listening to gossip."

"And you miss out on a lot by believing it," Sam ripostes reflexively. "Who _is_ that girl?"

"That was Lara Kulenkov."

"Never heard of her."

"Not surprising."

"Yes it's surprising!" Sam protests as they finally exit the foyer for the hallways of the school itself. "She's getting 95 or better in every subject! She ought to be on the Quiz Team, at least ..."

"Maybe she's busy." Mary's tongue is firmly in cheek.

"Well, yeah! I can't imagine what kind of studying, or tutoring, you'd need to get those kind of marks."

"Well ... you know what you used to tell me when I asked you how you pulled down your grades?"

Sam frowns. "I said that I did it the old-fashioned way: hard work and lots of study. So?"

"So I've heard that she does it the older-fashioned way."

"What older-fashioned way?"

_Elsewhere_

It's not exactly a comfortable position to be in, lying on a desk on her stomach, with her skirt rucked up around her waist, while a man in his forties huffs and puffs behind her. But Lara is used to uncomfortable positions. Life could be considered an uncomfortable position. She is more than willing to do what she has to in order to -

Abruptly, her train of thought on the subject is broken as the teacher stops, and slumps into his chair. She looks backward over her shoulder, vaguely concerned that he might have suffered a heart attack or other distress. Instead he is simply looking at her with a disgruntled expression.

"What?" she asks, genuinely bewildered.

"What's wrong with you?" he replies, genuinely aggravated. "You might as well be a doll, for all the passion -"

"Passion?" she asks, rolling onto her side to get a better look at him. "I agreed to two sessions with you before, and one after exemptions were posted. No one said anything about every one of them being passionate. You're getting what you wanted."

"Well, maybe I want this time a little more like the last two times," the teacher snaps. "I can always change your grades back, you know. I can say that I made a little mistake, and no one will blink an -"

Lara stares at him as he delivers this threat, and stops him in mid-sentence by abruptly pushing herself up into a seated position, keeping her eyes locked on his the entire time. Slowly, she slides her behind off the edge of the desk and levers herself down so that her knees rest between his spread legs. Then, quickly, she brings her face to his, kissing him fiercely, letting her tongue penetrate his mouth extensively as she pulls her upper body forward to crush it against his. After a full minute of frantic, sudden passion, she lets her lips slide off his, and asks, breathily, "Would you like me to call you Daddy, too?"

"Wha -?" her teacher asks in the first second after the question registers. Then his senses clear even further, very suddenly. "No! Don't be disgusting!"

"Disgusting?" she asks, as she caresses his face with her nose. "Who do you think taught me everything I know?"

Any arousal now totally banished, the teacher pushes her back - or tries at least. She seems much stronger than he at the moment, and determined to hold on to him. "Your father - my God, does your mother know about -"

"Mommy?" she asks. "She joined in. It was _great_."

If it were possible to express negative arousal, he would be doing so now. "Get out," he says without any real feeling in his tone. "Just ... get out."

She stares at him momentarily, then shrugs, pushes back and steps into her shoes. "All right. I consider the transaction complete, however. Any attempt to alter your half of its terms may result in ... unpleasant exposure on your part."

She walks out from behind the desk, brushing wrinkles out of her skirt as she walks to the door. She pauses as she twists the lock open, and looks back. "You weren't as good as he was. Or her." And then she's gone.

For a moment, the teacher wonders what sort of sick girl would make that comparison. Then he wonders what sort of sick man would be hurt by it, like he is. And then he starts to gag.

_Elsewhere_

This particular day, both Sam and Mary have sixth period free, and put it to good use by meeting in the gymnasium to discuss a difference of opinion.

"Couldn't we just watch the wrestlers practicing?" Mary asks wearily as our awareness settles on them.

"No, we can't," Sam replies irritatedly. "Mary, don't you see how wrong it is to spread rumors like that about anybody?"

"I didn't spread anything," she growls. "You asked me what I'd heard. I told you what I'd heard. Don't kill the messenger."

Sam is a bit startled by that reply. "You mean ... are you saying that I'm the only one you've told that slander? That doesn't -"

Mary sighs. "Everyone else knows already. She's old news. Has been for a couple years. And it's not slander - there's witnesses."

"That's not the point - and actually, it makes the whole story incredible."

"Huh?"

"If a lot of people had witnessed someone ... well, influencing teachers like that, then surely they would have gone to the administration and complained about it by now. There would have been an investigation, and she would either have been exonerated or expelled - what?"

Mary is laughing quietly. "You're really innocent sometimes, Sam. Doesn't the name Kulenkov mean anything to you?"

Sam frowns, and starts to speak slowly. "Well, it's a Russian name, so she's probably descended from the Whites ... from that I can probably safely conclude that her family's pretty wealthy ... but other than that, I'm drawing a blank. What am I missing?"

"Ever look at the names of the Academy's Board of Governors?" Mary asks, still sounding amused.

"Kulenkov?" Sam guesses.

"From what I heard, her great-grandfather came over here in '21, her grandfather got rich reconstructing after the Burn, her father practically owns this place, and daddy's little princess can do whatever she wants," Mary relates, ticking the generations of the Kulenkov family off on her fingers, one by one.

Sam suppresses a comment about Mary's class prejudices. "Even if that's true - and I don't doubt that it is," she hastens to add, "there still isn't conclusive proof. You say there are witnesses, but I'll bet you half my next allowance that you don't know their names, never talked to them yourself, only to friends of theirs."

Mary glares for a moment. "I don't gamble with you. You always win any bet you come up with. I still think you cheated that time - look, what's it to you, Sam? Why are we arguing about whether it's okay to gossip about this girl?"

Sam opens her mouth to explain that it's not just about "this girl" or whatever her fvaored leisure activities might be. Then she realizes that she owes her friend a more honest reply, even as one comes to her.

"Mar," she says after a moment, the magic usage of a childish nickname invoking utter sincerity. "Do you remember about two, maybe two and a half years ago, when I ... when people were saying that I had ... I was ..."

"A tribade?" Mary supplies.

"Yes," Sam answers tersely. "It was all just a big misunderstanding. A very big misunderstanding. After all, I didn't know that Darren was ... that he was just using me as ..."

"His beard?"

"Right." Her teeth were clenched on that one, folks. "And so when everyone else found out -"

"- before you did."

"- it must have seemed unlikely that I didn't know -"

"- because I knew from the first."

"- and so the conclusion that I was also using him that way -"

"- almost had me ready to knock some sense into the silly berk who was spreading it."

"- while wrong, was totally reasonable. Really?"

"Yeah. I knew you'd be upset, even if I don't understand why."

Sam sighs. Another sore point. "Because that sort of behaviour is wrong, and I don't like having it said that I engage in it, anymore than I'd like it if people were saying I was a thief. But do you see, now, why it is really wrong to spread or listen to rumors about someone's ... lifestyle ... without proof?"

"Okay, okay, you've caught me with that idea," Mary says wearily. "If anyone starts up on that subject around me, I'll tell them to stop it."

Sam smiles.

"Unless they know something for sure. I mean, if they've seen something, then surely -"

It is at that moment that a very startled, almost poleaxed-looking Dieter Marcinko stumbles out of the gym supply room. He realizes that a pair of freshmen are watching him from a bench nearby, and straightens himself to walk with poise out of the gym.

"Shirt's buttoned up wrong," Mary calls after him.

He stops. After a moment, he turns and heads into the men's change room. Chuckling, Mary turns around to deliver a further witticism to Sam ... and then pauses. "Uh, Sam? What if _I_ know something for sure?"

Sam turns to follow Mary's gaze, and sees Lara standing in the open door of the supply room. Her shirt is also buttoned up wrong. She is staring at them, and once again Sam feels the terrible cold.

_Elsewhere_

The day passes without further incident.

Mary has to head for the hospital, so Sam is left on her own to walk to the cluster of shops today. There's nothing in particular she wants to buy, but as she trudges along, head bowed in the heat, she decides that she can do with a drink - and the vending machine back at the school is out of order. A nice cold drink will ...

Cold ...

Not again. Sam lifts her head to look ahead of her, and sees Lara standing astide her path with a stony expression.

"Why," she asks, "are you following me?"

"I'm not," Sam replies quickly. "I mean, obviously, we're going to the same place, and I'm walking behind you, but there's no deliberate intention involved."

Lara continues to stare. "I do not know what you are about," she says at last. "But I have done some checking up on you. Rumor has it that you are -"

"I'm not," Sam growls, angry that the rumor is still being spread about.

"- an incurable meddler in the business of your betters," Lara continues as though she hadn't been interrupted. "This may be true or not. I do not care. But you will stay out of my business, or regret it."

That sounded like a threat. Sam smiles. Threats she can handle. "Imprimis, you don't frighten me," she says evenly. "Secondus, I don't have any wish to get involved in your affairs. Tertius, whoever told you that I was a meddler sounds like the sort of bully I've been helping my friends to stand up against for years. Quartius et terminus: So do you - and you should really stop trying to scare me."

Still Lara stares at her, but now Sam meets her gaze squarely. With an air of disdain, the dark-haired girl shrugs, turns and walks away in the direction of the shopping district.

As she goes, Sam's confident smile fades. As though her problems weren't hard enough already, now she may have a school feud on her plate as well. "I really can't afford to fight with you, Kulenkov," she says, but quietly, so no ears but her own can hear it.

"Especially since she's supposed to be one of your allies," says Rune.

The word - in the onomatopoeic sense - that Sam says next can't really be rendered into the Latin alphabet without using far too many vowels.

"Hello to you, too," comments the currently human-shaped woman standing a bit behind Sam and to her right.

"How long have you been there?" Sam asks as soon as she has her breathing back under control.

Rune shrugs. "A few minutes, just long enough to listen in on your conversation with that one. I couldn't make myself seen with her around, obviously."

Sam frowns. "Did you say that she's an ally?"

"Have you noticed anything odd when you talk to her?"

Sam describes the chilling sensation, and Rune nods in a fashion that suggests she's been told exactly what she expects. "Do you recall exactly what you say when you do your exorcism?"

"Not really," Sam answers, starting to walk again. "It doesn't seem to stick in my mind. Look, rather than engaging in Socratic inquiry, why don't you just tell me what you think?"

Rune follows a few steps behind. "All right. You mention four things you would do if you could, but state that they aren't within your power. One of those things is `immure you in ice'. I have reason to believe that this part of the incantation is a reference to four other magic-workers who will be ... drawn to support you. This Kulenkov seems an excellent candidate for the wielder of the ice magic, don't you agree?"

Sam turns on her heel to look right into Rune's eyes. "Where are you getting this information?"

"A number of sources that I'm not prepared to disclose."

"Not ready to disclose," Sam repeats.

Rune nods simply.

"What are you, a journalist?"

"No. I am a survivor." Seeing Sam frown, she elaborates. "Suppose that I tell you all that I know. What need do you have for me then?"

"Are you suggesting -"

"No, I'm saying it more or less directly."

Sam stares at her. It's the first time she's ever been accused of contemplating deliberate murder. (Well, except for when Diane has shouted "She's trying to kill me!", but that doesn't count.) "If you don't trust me, if you think I might kill you, why did you come back to face me? Why did you come to me in the first place?"

Rune makes the hacking noise in her throat, the one that Sam suspects is an indication of disgust or contempt. "That should be obvious."

Sam starts to protest that it's not obvious ... then her brain supplies the answer before she can. It's the only thing that fits, if she accepts Rune's stated motivation as truthful. "Someone else told you to contact me," she states. "Someone, who frightens you more than the possibility of my killing you, told you to do it."

Rune just stares. "Very good."

"I suppose this person's identity is also on the list of questions you won't answer."

"You suppose right."

Sam sighs. "Very well, let's table that for the moment. About Kulenkov: How do we find out if she's one of these other ... magic workers?"

Rune reaches behind her back and produces a cyllindrical object that Sam recognizes as a pen, after it's handed to her. "Give this to her, and get her to say the words `Mercury Power ... Make-Up'."

"Mercury? But Mercury is the planet closest to the sun. Why would it be associated with - never mind," she says to forestall one of Rune's disgusted chokes. "You didn't craft the things."

Rune watches as Sam examines the pen for a few moments, and turns to look in the direction that Lara went earlier. She grows annoyed as the girl makes no start on following. "What are you wating on?" she finally snaps.

"Huh?" Sam asks, returning to look at Rune. "Oh. I've still got a few questions I'd like to ask you."

"Ask. I promise no answers."

"Somebody asked you to come here, to Japan, from this Dark Kingdom, in order to give me - and I guess other people, too - these devices," Sam begins slowly. "My question is, why you?"

Rune blinks. "I don't under-"

"Why did this person choose you, and not someone else?"

The confusion finally appears in Rune's expression. "How in the world should I know what she was thinking? I ... I suppose that she had some way of finding out those who had doubts about the Cru-" She stops in mid-word, staring in horror at Sam's calm, attentive face. "You tricked me."

"Yes." There is no pride there, only patience.

The cat is plainly visible in the woman's eyes, in her mouth, and in her suddenly curled fingers. "You may have _killed_ me, you little -"

"Then wouldn't it be a good idea to make sure that I can protect you from whoever you just betrayed?" Sam asks. "And want to?"

Rune glares at her, open-mouthed. Then she abruptly turns and marches away, hips swaying.

Not a lot of reward, Sam thinks, but I didn't have to risk a lot, either. She turns and heads after her other unwitting ally.

_Elsewhere_

"For the last time," Ken Easley, proprietor of Tribute Publications, says between clenched teeth, "I don't stock that kind of garbage. And if you don't wanna get bounced out of here for life, you won't _ever_ describe it when I got other customers!"

The girl in the Heinlein uniform, who just asked for an obscene native publication, shrugs and turns to examine those books he does stock. This is the second time this week that someone's aksed him about that crap. At least the last time there hadn't been any other customers around ... this time, this spacey dame chased off two others! Easley doesn't understand it. Why would people think he had that stuff on sale?

He passes, doesn't he?

Ken (full name: Kenta) Easley forces himself to stop thinking about that, and focuses on the odd package that came in the mail this morning. The return address is somewhere in the south; not one of his usual distributors. Wait ... suppose the girl, or that guy earlier this week, is in touch with the publishers of that sort of thing? And suppose he or she had them send a catalogue, or something? And suppose the metropolitan guards are right outside?

Okay, so that's a little paranoid. Still, better open it, check it out.

He opens the package, and slides its contents out onto the counter. Then he frowns. Whatever he was expecting, this wasn't it. Why would anyone send him an airtight, clear-topped plastic caserole dish containing what looks like purple oil?

The caserole dish is fairly easy to open, and then he is able to look more closely at its contents. He wonders why they're boiling.

That is the last thought he will ever have.

Irritated by the refusal of the half-breed clerk to produce the publications that she wants, Lara turns to examine his publicly displayed goods. She has no intention of buying anything - light novels are for children, and she left childhood behind years ago. She'd only been interested in the book she asked about because it might provide useful ideas for future encounters - though where would she find a live octopus?

The clerk emits a confused sound, and she looks up to see that he's just opened a package and taken some sort of vessel out of it. Why he should be surprised to receive something in his own mail is beyond her, and she returns to her pointless examination of the books.

The popping noise of the vessel being opened does not attract her interest. The hissing, bubbly noise that she belatedly realizes is like water boiling, on the other hand, prompts her to whip her head up to look in the clerk's direction.

He is bent over the vessel, purple steam flowing up towards his face and into his open mouth and nose. Initially, Lara wonders if this is some strange narcotic amusement, but before she can depart so as to give the addict privacy, the steam appears to dissipate completely.

At once, the clerk's head jerks up to a point where his chin is roughly parallel to the floor, and then slowly twists around so that his face is pointed directly at her. He blinks several times, almost reminding her of a camera's shutter. And then he grins in a rictus which looks as though it would be painful to maintain for an extended duration. "He _hates_ you," the clerk announces in a cheerful, conversational tone.

Lara steps back as he vaults over the counter with greater agility than she would have imagined possible for such a rotund man. He steps toward her, walking in a strange, hunched-over pose. "Going to cut you up into little pieces and eat them," he croons.

He is approaching slowly, but she suspects that if she makes a move towards the door that leads back to the storage area, which - presumably - has a tradesman's entrance, he will lunge. No escape that way; his demonstration of his agility convinced her of that. Yet perhaps, if she can surprise him ...

He slouches still closer, and if she is ever to seize the moment, it must be this moment. She darts forward and slides past in his instant of surprised immobility. The door is only a few feet away - she can make it -

But she doesn't. With that same speed, he turns and lashes out at her back, catching one of the folds of her skirt to trip her. Pain jolts up her chin as it hits the floor, and suddenly this all seems very familiar, yet as she tries to crawl out of his grip on her ankles to the door, she cannot remember when this happened before.

He seizes her shoulder, pulls her so that she is looking up at him, and leans in close to her face. "Fight," he says, his hot breath warming her cheeks, "don't run. I like fighting. So fight."

She could fight. He's positioned himself foolishly, so that she could easily slam his crotch with her knee. She could fight. She's done it before, when a mark wanted things she chose not to give. She could fight.

She's not going to fight.

"Boring," snarls the clerk, and one taut hand reaches for her neck.

The door jingles. In almost the same instant, an angry voice says, "Get off of her. Now."

The voice is strangely familiar, yet Lara can't quite place it. So she bends her neck backwards so that she can see whoever is standing in the doorway. The upside-down perspective confuses her, but she recognizes Samantha Hazzard, the blonde she'd warned off earlier. Not a rescuer she ever expected.

The clerk snarls. To her credit, the Hazzard girl seems unafraid. Clearly, she's an idiot, but -

And then ... something very strange happens. The blonde murmurs something that Lara can't quite make out, and light streams out from her, so brightly Lara has to close her eyes. When she can bear to open them again, someone else is standing where Sam stood. Actually, her first thought is to wonder how exactly the girl managed to grow a pair of waist-length ponytails. Then she notices the skirt. _She_ wouldn't wear something as daring as that. At least not in public.

The different girl speaks, and does so in a voice higher than Sam's. "How dare you take on this man's seeming and use it to molest this girl, who has already suffered enough?"

What in the world, wonders Lara, is she talking about?

"Were it within me, I would punish you with fiery torment, I would immure you in frigid ice, I would rain down thunder upon you, I would make your name a half-forgotten memory. Yet these are not mine. All that I may do is all that I shall do: I cast you out of this place, by light of the Sun, and the warmth of the Earth, and by the Moon who is their daughter - but more, by the one behind them whose name we do not know. I cast you out. BEGONE!"

With a howl, the clerk seems to flip back from his prone stance over Lara's body to a standing position, and then almost instantly half-falls/half-leaps backwards to collapse several feet away.

"Are you all right?" the girl asks Lara anxiously as she kneels down beside her.

"I - you - what is going on here?" she asks after sifting through dozens of possible responses.

"A monster took over that man's body." Strange how such an absurd response sounds perfectly reasonable at the moment. "You're not hurt, are you? If you are, I can call -"

"I'm not hurt," Lara replies. "Who are you?"

The girl's sigh is unpleasantly reminiscent of similar exasperated noises made by The Bitch. "You know who I am. You saw me change."

"Then what are you?" Abruptly, Lara realizes both that she is terrified, and why she is. Furthermore, she knows why she has been ill-at-ease when Sam Hazzard was present, though not so much as now. Sam had been _warm_. This girl is even _more_ warm, and the places inside Lara that she has made cold scream in agony whenever she is near to either of them.

"I don't know what I am," the girl replies, perhaps sensing something of Lara's fear. "But - this is important, Miss Kulenkov - you -"

There isn't even a snarl to give them warning. Before the girl can complete her sentence, the clerk springs on her, grabbing hold of the shoulders of her costume and dragging her away from Lara. "Dame," he says. "Dame."

"Dame this!" the girl snaps, and slams her elbow into his stomach.

She is strong, Lara gathers from the next few moments of intense fighting, but the creature is much stronger - and slightly faster. She can see desperation start to grow on the girl's face. Abruptly, she turns to look at Lara. "In my satchel!" she calls, seizing a moment by twisting the creature's nose. "There's a pen! Get it! Hurry!"

Lara can't quite bring herself to hurry on someone else's say-so, but she does open the satchel that Sam dropped before beginning her transformation. She finds three pens, two of which appear to be normal, ink-containing writing implements. But the third - it is cold to her touch, like metal on a winter's day. Even wrapping her hand around it doesn't make it any warmer. Quite the converse.

"Mercury Power Make-Up!" shouts the girl, trying to keep the creature's arms from wrapping her in a full nelson. "Say Mercury -"

"Mercury Power Make-Up?" repeats Lara. What a non-

The cold expands from the pen to her hand, and spreads up her arm, ultimately enveloping her entire body. She would expect it to be agonizing, but perhaps whatever is happening is increasing her already considerable tolerance for cold. Things are definitely changing inside of her, but she lacks the knowledge to understand them. She knows this much is true, however: it is wonderful.

And even when the changes stop, the wonder continues. She can see and hear and even smell, but there is no feeling, except for a sense of gravity. Instead of any sensation on her skin, she has only the cold.

Both the girl and the creature are staring at her. She smiles. Perhaps she can share this wonderful feeling with them. No ... not with this girl. The warmth she sensed in her earlier is even more obvious now, and it would inure her against the gift. But the clerk-become-creature is another tale.

She lifts her hands, and begins to speak. (Her voice is fainter, but she barely notices.) "My heart is colder than the northern night. Know this cold, you who brought it forth!"

Something streams out of her outstretched hands - something almost translucent, yet so dense in parts that it seems white, and something moving so swiftly that her eye can't quite lock on it. It streams into the clerk's side, momentarily turned from her as he grapples with the girl, and he howls with surprised pain. The shock also gives the girl leverage to break free of his grip, and she comes up facing him.

Strangely, she then repeats the chant she performed earlier, but with a modification. Instead of referring to "this girl who has already suffered enough", she speaks of "my newfound ally" - which a part of Lara, buried beneath the ice that now covers her soul, rejects, even as the ice itself accepts it. She watches as the man's body bends backwards as if struck unconscious yet suspended from the neck, vomiting up a purple gas that fades to nothingness a moment later. This accomplished, the man collapses completely.

The girl's appearance shifts then, and Sam is once more standing in her place. "Thank you," she says quickly. "Now, you ought to change back to normal too."

Why, screams Lara's soul in protest, even as her lips form the word, "How?"

"Think of a switch, then turn it off. The longer you stay in your ... alter ego -"

Lara realizes that she has changed. Unlike the change forward, the reversal is practically instantaneous.

"- the more tired you'll be when you return to nor- hey, are you all right?"

She wonders what prompted the question ... and then she realizes that she is smiling. Broadly. It probably looks very strange on her normally taciturn face. Yet she doesn't care. She focuses on Sam's worried-looking eyes, and speaks her mind. "That was wonderful!"

"Wonderful?" repeats Sam.

"I ... I never imagined anything could feel so good!" Lara grabs the other girl by the shoulders of her jacket. "And it's all thanks to you! I could kiss you!"

"Please don't," Sam replies with a bemused look on her face.

Oh. Evidently the rumors on that subject are false. Or perhaps there's another explanation. In any event, there are more important things to worry about, now. "You said that the longer the change is maintained, the more exhaustion I'll experience when it terminates. I do feel a bit tired, but do you know how long it can be sustained without posing a serious health risk."

Sam blinks, her bemusement growing. "Well ... no. The longest I've been in it was about half-an-hour, and I used my attack twice and did a lot of jumping during that interval. It left me feeling like I'd had a full day's work after a sleepless night, but -"

Lara nods throughout Sam's explanation. "Yes, that would follow," she interrupts. "Activity, particularly unusual activity, would be a contributing factor. But that means ... I could theoretically maintain the transformation for _hours_, if I didn't do anything else, without putting my life in jeopardy."

"Excuse me? Why would you want to just change and then not do something?"

She stares at Sam in shock. "Why wouldn't I want to feel like that? Don't you feel wonderful when you've changed?"

"I ... haven't really noticed," Sam hesitantly replies. "I've usually been too busy just doing the job and ..." She trails off, and turns to look at the clerk's slumped form with concern. "Was he already under that thing's control when you came in?"

"I don't think so. It started when he breathed in the same sort of purple gas that he spit out at the end, and that was only a few minutes before you arrived. Why?"

Sam is by the clerk's side in a twinkling. "If he'd only been possessed for that long, he shouldn't be out this long." She begins to pat the man's face. "Sir? Can you hear me? Are you -"

She realizes how still the cheek feels.

She checks for a pulse in his neck.

"He's dead," she says.

After a moment, Lara ventures a question. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," Sam replies, but the word is a bit muffled by her hands, clenched over her mouth.

"What do you do when this happens?"

"I don't know!" Sam snaps. "This hasn't happened, before now. I ..." She takes a deep breath. "I think we have to call the guards."

Lara stares at her. "Are you mad? If we tell the guards what happened here, they will never believe it! We will be blamed! We should just head out the back -"

Sam shakes her head. "No. If anyone saw us come in here - and it's a busy area, so someone will have - then they'll be able to tell the guards that we did, and if they think we fled the scene -"

"Then what do we do?" Lara is afraid, and her hatred for her fear is even greater than Sam's own. If not for a vague sense of gratitude to her, she would have fled long since.

Sam closes her eyes, and asks what Father would do.

He would choose the lesser evil.

"You came in," she says. "He was lying on the floor, and you panicked. I came in a few minutes later, found you both, checked him, and spent a few minutes calming you down. Then I called the guards. Don't elaborate, don't improvise, and try to act as though you're still spooked." She walks behind the counter, picks up the telephone's speaker, and starts to dial.

"We're going to lie to the guards?" Lara asks, plainly amazed at either the idea or the fact that Sam proposed it.

Sam stops dialing. "Yes," she bites out. "They can't be more precise about his time of death than a few hours either way, so we should be okay if we don't elaborate, and don't improvise. Can you handle that?"

Lara stares at her, then draws a long, shuddering breath. "Yes ... yes, I understand. It's just ... it's just so awful, and ... I've never _seen _ anyone, anything like this before." Her clenched, frightened features suddenly smooth out. "Convincing?"

Sam closes her mouth. "Almost fooled me." She starts dialing again.

_Elsewhere_

By the time the guards are finished questioning them, it is nearly five after noon. Sam is anxious to return home before her parents begin to worry, and so after a quick consultation, she and Lara agree to meet and discuss Lara's role in future operations tomorrow.

For her part, Lara isn't in any particular hurry. So she ambles back to school. Even at this hour, the administrative offices remain open. With a pleasant smile to the receptionist, she requests the use of the phone, and summons Chou.

Roughly an hour later, she's deposited at the door of the mansion. "Thank you, Chou, I think that will be all for the evening."

"Yes, Ma'am."

She goes in, and is startled to see The Bitch sitting on the stairs just inside, clearly waiting for her. "Are you all right?" The Bitch asks with a disturbingly believable facsimile of concern. "Our friends in the guards phoned to give me the news."

Lara just stares.

"For heaven's sake, Larissa," The Bitch snaps, a bit of the loathing she must feel finally coming out in her tone as she uses Lara's full Christian name. "You can't just go through something like this and then go on giving me the same silent treatment that you've been giving me for the last three -"

"Bitch."

The Bitch stares at her, mouth hanging open. Lara is a bit shocked at herself; it's the first time she's ever said it so openly. Before The Bitch can make any active response, Lara quickly walks past her, up the stairs. She can hear The Bitch coming up behind her, and so she quickly ducks into her room, locking the door behind her.

Predictably, the pounding on the door begins almost immediately. "Larissa! Open this door! Right now!"

"Mercury Power Make-Up," Lara murmurs, and feels the cold descend.

The pounding continues for several minutes, but without any response, it dies down eventually. She can hear deep, sobbing breaths issuing from someone on the other side.

"Lara, how can you do this to me?" someone asks. "Do you not realize how much I love you? How hard I've had to fight to keep you? I'm your mother, for God's sake - how can you treat me like this?"

At another time, she would have silently raged against that particular lie of The Bitch, but now all that is very far away, buried beneath the ice. She pays it no more mind than she does the voice itself, and instead goes to lie down in bed. When she resumes that other form - for this, as the way that she wants to be, will henceforth be her normal form - she will be tired, perhaps even exhausted. So she'll prepare for that eventuality.

On the other side of the door, someone continues to babble. "I know that I haven't been a good mother. I know I should have known what he was doing! But Lara, I stopped him! Doesn't that count? I made him go away, I swore to his father that I'd drag their precious good name through the dirt if he came near either of us again. Why are you so angry at me when I saved you? I don't understand!"

Meaningless noise, all of it. She lies on the bed, luxuriating in the cold. How foolish she'd been to desire warmth before the return of her father and her true mother, that morning. Reality without them is cold; to endure it, one must be colder. It is an obvious conclusion. Now, she feels nothing. It is wonderful.

Let us leave these people now, in the hell that fate and their own actions have made for them.


	4. Chapter 3

And here comes in the question whether  
it is better to be loved rather than feared,  
or feared rather than loved. It might  
perhaps be answered that we should  
wish to be both; but since love and fear  
can hardly exist together, if we must  
choose between them, it is far safer to  
be feared than loved.

- Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

**April 30, 1992**

The Duchy of Burgundy is reknowned around the world as an ideal vacation spot. Stretching for miles between the French Republic and the Reich, it is politically stable, religiously and culturally tolerant, and famously clean. The upper classes are proud but generous, and always mindful of the obligations of nobility. The lower classes are hard working but loyal, and always willing to celebrate the end of a productive workday. The small middle class blends these attributes with humility befitting their station, creating a social array that embodies all the virtues and very few of the vices of Burgundy's medieval golden age. Visiting La Belle Duchie is like stepping into a time machine, while at the same time being constantly assured of one's safety.

This is the reputation that Burgundy enjoys. But reputation is like stereotype. Sometimes it is true, but only a fool would believe that it is always true.

Consider the Mediterranean vacation city of Cannes, famous for its yearly theatrical festival. Even when the festival isn't being held, the streets are kept meticulously clean, and the transportation system runs on time. But even when it is, there are places where the guard will not go after dark, and to which cabbies will only reluctantly convey their passengers.

One such place - its precise location doesn't matter, since we don't live in this Cannes, nor are we likely to visit - is, this early morning, the site of a meeting between two men and a thing that looks like a man. The two men are representatives (actually, leaders) of two gangs of apaches that aren't quite at war with each other, but aren't exactly allied either. Creating such an alliance has been the task of the thing.

As we join them, the last of the customers at the tavern where the meeting will take place have been ushered out - some easily, some slightly violently - by the barkeep, who then locks the front door and goes upstairs to see and hear nothing of what follows. He knows how his bread is buttered, does this barkeep.

"Why so nervous?" abruptly asks one of the two men of the other. "You think I'd go to all this trouble to kill you? I came up with this deal, remember?" That last is a lie. The thing suggested the deal, but the man has since convinced himself otherwise. His pride demands it.

"I don't fear *you*," sneers his counterpart. "But there are people talking ... they say the Flame, she has been seen in these parts."

The first man spits on the floor. "The Flame? She's a lie, an urban legend. You read too many Fantomas stories."

"I do read. Can you?"

"Gentlemen," says the thing, trying to stave off the fight. "This is a pointless argument. While the Flame does surely exist -"

The first man silently grins, thinking he recognizes an attempt to coddle the second man.

"- my associates have taken precautions to ensure that she will not only be unaware of this meeting, but that even if she should somehow gain awareness, she will be unable to reach this place before we conclude our business."

"All right, but then let's be quick about it."

The thing nods, and lifts two heavy metal suitcases onto the table where the two men sit. Ambidextrously, it opens the locks on the cases simultaneously, to reveal a large sum of money in each and a vessel containing a purple oil.

"As we agreed, fifteen hundred marks for each of your gangs, preferential treatment in the sale of our ... unique merchandise, and our assistance in mediating any disputes concerning the territories where your borders meet. All we request is that you each place one of these objects in a public area where it is likely to be discovered ... and opened."

It pauses, perhaps to evaluate whether either man is having second thoughts it can detect. Satisfied, it asks, "Well, my good men? Have we a deal?"

Before there is any answer, the door bursts into fire.

"It's her!" screams the second man.

Obligingly, a high-heeled foot slams through the burning door, speeding its disintegration. The woman attached to the foot steps through the doorway a moment later, but the burning seems to ignore her absurdly short red skirt and white leotard. Perhaps the hot air and rising smoke causes her red and yellow dyed hair to move and shift in ways that seem to echo the fire surrounding her.

"You're all going to die," says the Flame. She sounds cheerful.

"No!" cries the second man, drawing and firing the crappy African revolver he brought with him against the chance of treachery.

It's not the worst move he could have made, since there aren't any good ones. The Flame's right hand, holding what looks like a pen, moves faster than it's possible to describe. Every bullet sent in her direction ricochets away with a pinging noise, until there are none left and the second man is left to click away with an empty gun in the vain hope of a miracle.

The Flame ignores him, whirling to see that the first man has taken advantage of her total focus on the second to move so as to blindside her. Fortunately, he takes a bit more time aiming than the other man did, allowing her to still deflect his shot.

"Glgghk," says the second man as the deflected shot goes right through his throat.

"Oops," says the Flame. She doesn't sound very sincere.

The first man makes his final mistake that evening; he turns to glance at his former colleague's final moments. When his eyes turn back in the direction of his immediate threat, she is already sailing through the air, one leg extended forward, and then her heel slams through his eye and into what lies behind it.

The Flame twists away from the collapsing corpse, glaring in the direction of the thing, who has stood impertubably through all of this. "I suppose it would do no good to plead for mercy?" it asks.

The Flame snorts.

"Ah well then," the creature says, and turns into a silvery gray mist that quickly disperses.

"Christ!" snaps the Flame.

She angrily marches over to the suitcases, picks up the two vessels and tosses them to the floor. "My heart is as a raging inferno. Know this fire, that which brought it forth!" she chants, and sends a gout of fire towards them.

The Flame imagines that she can see vague shapes screaming in the exploding vessels, and her anger at losing her primary target abates slightly. But she's also burning valuable time. So with a small sigh of regret, she turns away, quickly closes the two briefcases and picks them up, before walking out through the still smouldering door.

A few moments later, the barkeep runs down the stairs and through the burning tavern, out into the street. He doesn't know where he's running to, he can't very well tell the fire brigade to come save his tavern and find the two corpses in it, but -

"Going somewhere?" asks the Flame, standing just a few metres outside the door.

The barkeep stops dead, his eyes like saucers and his mouth hanging open. "I - I just work here -" he says at last.

"You worked for *them*. You betrayed humanity."

fHe shakes his head stiffly, a gesture of disbelief instead of denial.

"So run," the Flame suggests.

He stares at her, and then believing himself to have been miraculously reprieved, he turns and dashes away up the street.

She waits until he's out of earshot, then brings her hand up to her chest and begins to chant. "My heart is as a raging -"

But before it can go any further, what is happening on the far side of the world, as Samantha Hazzard embraces her true self, becomes suddenly known to the Flame, and she reels with the knowledge of the new power come into the world.

A few moments later, her head finally clears, and she looks blearily in the direction where her target has disappeared. His is the first life Sam Hazzard will save, that day.

The Flame considers this knowledge, breathing heavily. "No," she says at last. "No, no, no. This will _not_ do at all.

"I'm going to have to kill that little bitch."

**June 13, 1992**

Sam waves farewell to Mary as her friend heads off on her daily pilgrimage to her mother's bedside. For herself, she intends to head down to the shopping district and see if the new novels have -

She abruptly remembers that the store in question is closed, as none of the owner's heirs showed any interest in continuing to operate it. For a moment, Sam wonders where she's supposed to buy her novels now. Then her self-pity turns to self-disgust. Stifling the urge to start swearing, she marches down the street that leads to the district, dropping onto a bench halfway there.

It's not my fault that he died, Sam begins her usual litany. I did everything I knew how to do in order to save him. And now that I know that this new kind of Possessor can kill its victims, I can work harder to make sure that doesn't happen anymore.

That part, at least, is very true. With Lara's help, she's been able to "interrupt the infestation's progress" (Lara's words, not her own) three times since then without a fatality. All of the victims have seemed more dead than alive, true, and they will likely take as long to heal as Mary's mother is taking, but they did not die.

She holds that fact as armor around her heart.

Lara has been a capable ally. Despite knowing about her test scores, Sam was startled to learn how quick-witted the other girl could actually be. Unfortunately, she doesn't have Sam's ability to sense the presence of corporeal evil, so the responsibility for that still rests on Sam's shoulders.

But Lara _is_ able to sense when Sam transforms, and gains a sense of Sam's location when she herself transforms. Knowing that Sam doesn't like to stay in her alternate form for more than a few moments without a good reason, Lara has been able to deduce that something is up from Sam's activity, and then swiftly move to join her.

But it's been nerve wracking, for Sam at least. And there are still too many unanswered questions. She hasn't heard from her only source of enemy intelligence since she started to cooperate with Lara.

Sam shifts uncomfortably. It's an unusually warm day. She still feels cold when she's around Lara, but she's grown accustomed to it. They'd planned to meet and discuss some strategies, but Lara was detained by one of the teachers. (It was a detention. Sam refuses to consider the possibility that Lara is being debauched by her geometry teacher, Miss Northcott.)

"Excuse me," says a voice from behind her.

Sam turns, and then stares at the girl standing there. Her hair is yellow. Not just one of the lighter shades of blonde, but dyed as yellow as a pencil crayon of that hue. Her ankle-length skirt is a brilliant red, while her billowy blouse is stainless white. She's smiling, and Sam feels particularly uncomfortably warm when she considers that smile, for some reason.

"Are you Samantha Hazzard?" the girl asks.

"Yes," Sam answers before she can consider asking who wants to know.

The girl lets out a pleased sigh. "I've been looking all over for you. You're not really easy to find."

"Um ... really?"

The smile grows broader. Sam grows more uncomfortable.

"You don't have any idea who I am, do you?"

Sam shakes her head, then pauses. "You're not ... one of my relatives, are you?" Her birth father had certainly been active enough to produce several -

"No." She shakes her left arm, and a familiar-looking pen drops from her sleeve into her hand. "Mars ... Power ..." She pauses, and stares at Sam with eyebrow cocked. "Do I really have to say the third word?"

Sam gaped a bit when she saw the pen, but now she nods, fascinated. "You're the one who uses fire."

"Interesting way of putting it," the girl replies slowly. "I take it that you've found others of our ... sorority?"

Sam opens her mouth to tell her about Lara, but alarm bells ring in her head, and she smoothly comments, "You have me at something of a disadvantage. Won't you take a seat, Miss -?"

With a vague shrug, the girl walks around to sit on the bench beside Sam. "Gloria Mundy. Pleased to meet you, and no, my parents knew no Latin," she answers the aghast expression.

"Can't choose your family, I guess. So, how long have you been ... well, doing it?"

"Four years."

It's possible that Gloria could have said something that would surprise Sam more. She could have claimed to have been an immortal warrior from Atlantis. She could have answered that Rune gave her the pen an hour ago, and that she hasn't yet used it. "Four years?"

Gloria nods, affecting not to notice Sam's shock. "I started just after my thirteenth birthday, so yeah. A little over four years."

"I thought this had only started a few months ago." There wasn't anything that Rune had said to indicate that, but surely her patron wouldn't have left the creation of a resistance, if that's what Sam is supposed to be, for so long.

But now Gloria is the one to seem stunned. "You're kidding! All the evidence suggests that it's been going on for fifty, maybe sixty years!" She smiles, and this time Sam doesn't feel warm at all. "We're just the latest enlistees on our side."

Conscripts, thinks Sam. "Well, then, are you planning on settling in this ... theatre of operations, I guess you'd call it?"

Gloria shrugs expansively. "I guess that I can, after I finish up one last thing from the last one. Actually, that's why I wanted to talk with you." She draws a deep breath. "I need your help."

"All right," Sam replies automatically.

Gloria stops pre-word, staring at Sam with a bewildered expression. "... would you like to know _why_ I need help?"

"Sure. But, well, unless you're trying to beat up some kid who damaged your bicycle or something like that -"

"No, nothing like that." Any humor present in Gloria's voice vanishes.

"I've been tracking a guy across the States, most of Europe, and now into Asia. I'm pretty sure that he ranks high in the Dark Kingdom; at least a Knight, maybe even a Rook. the point is, he's responsible for distributing a lot of Possessors, all over the world. And he's here, in Tokyo." She mispronounces the name as "toe-ki-oh".

"And you need my help to find him," Sam guesses.

"Right. I don't know this town. You do." She quirks a half-smile. "Basically, I need a native guide."

Sam nods decisively. "All right, I'll be glad to help. I just need to call my parents and let them know that I'll be home a little later than usual. There's a phone back at the Academy ... can you wait here?"

"Sure," Gloria says with a full smile, this time. "But keep it short. We're burning daylight."

_Perspective shift _

What a sap, thinks the Flame as she watches the Jap girl hurry back to school.

Show the pen, say a few words any two-bit Ogre could have overheard, and she's instantly ready to believe you're on her side.

What a sap. Killing her will improve the breed.

The Flame leans back and stares up at the sky. It has been a long time since she last used the name "Gloria Mundy". Longer since she thought of herself by that name. She perceives the direction that her thoughts are going, and turns them in a different path; she has no wish to consider the parents of the person she once was, and their pathetic problems. That's another thing to hold against Hazzard.

Instead, she considers the problems presented by the existence of Hazzard's other allies. She'll have to weasel information about them out of her before the killing, and decide what to do about them at that point.

The Flame hopes that she won't have to kill all of them. It would be good to have subordinates. Ideally, she'll be able to convince most of them that Hazzard's demise was an accident ... or better yet, that she nobly sacrificed her life to save her new-found ally, commending her other friends to the Flame's side with her dying breath.

She smiles at that, and spends the time until Hazzard returns mentally elaborating on the scenario.

"Alright, that's settled. Now, where do you think this ... Rook, I think you called him - where might he be hiding out?"

The Flame rises up. "According to the information I found in their base in the Reich, they operate out of some place in Shinjuku."

"New Gate," Hazzard translates, evincing an oh-so-annoying "as American as thou" attitude. "That's the old capitol area. It was hit pretty hard in the bombings, and after ... well, it was never really rebuilt. Very rough area, these days."

"Is that going to be a problem?" the Flame asks, putting just a lick of taunt in the question.

"Well, no. I was just thinking that it makes sense for them to be there, to be operating out of -"

"- a mostly ruined area," interrupts the Flame, upset that she won't get to tell Hazzard not to think, that she's not suited to it. Clearly, she does have some sense.

Just as clearly, she has to die. This kind of a threat to the Flame's preeminence can't be allowed to thrive. "So which way -" she begins to ask.  
"The train station's over this way," Hazzard answers the unfinished question.

"You're not tough enough to make the trip on your own power?" the Flame sneers.

Miracle! The girl finally notices the sarcasm. "Well ... no, I can handle it, but it'd be faster and safer to take the train right to New Gate Station."  
With a long sigh, the Flame concedes the point, and follows Hazzard to the train station. Foul place, that. Not a patch on the elegance of the stations back home in Atlanta.

It's not until they're actually on the train that the Flame considers that it might be a strategic mistake to be seen by so many people in the company of someone she's planning to kill later. But to back out now would be a very suspicious move.

Or is it already too late to avoid arousing the girl's suspicions? Could she have decided to take this route to Shinjuku specifically so that she'd be seen by all these people, who could give the Flame's description to the guards? And for that matter, what if that phone call wasn't to her parents, but to her allies? Could she have set up an ambuscade?

"Are you all right?" Hazzard asks softly, sounding concerned. "You seem really tense."

"I don't like crowds much," the Flame hisses.

"It's not all that crowded." She makes a little moue of disgust. "Well, I suppose that it probably seems crowded to you. I guess I'm just used to it. You know what they say about fishes not noticing water."

Was that an oblique warning? Everyone knows how treacherous Nips are; is she saying that she's so used to this kind of thing that the Flame's feeble efforts are obvious in their crudity? How dare she call the Flame's planning feeble!

Soon enough, they arrive at the station, and head out. The Flame continues to let Hazzard lead her, preferring to keep a clear line of fire against her back to the possibility that she could be led into a trap. As they exit, her eye is drawn to a fenced-off, barren area that nearly abuts the station. "So what's this?"

Hazzard turns to look. "Oh!" she says in apparent surprise. "That's right, I'd forgotten that New Gate Station was built right by one of the Giant's Footprints."

The Flame reels back. "Christ!" she says.

Hazzard frowns for the first time. "Hey! Keep a civil tongue in your head."

"A little warning would have been nice!" she snaps in reply. "And why isn't there any sign on the fence, if it's supposed to keep people away from -"

"Why put up a sign, when anyone who lives here knows what a huge, fenced-off area means? And anyone who comes into Japan gets a quick briefing at customs, or from their tour agent, or ... did you just not pay any attention when you were being told?"

"I guess I had other things on my mind." She can't very well admit that she came in illegally, as a stowaway on a tramp steamer from Macao. The  
Flame looks at the `footprint' with loathing and fear, as though expecting the radiation to jump out and bite her.

Hazzard follows her gaze, but seems more wistful, of course. "It's said that it gets less hot every year. By the time I'm an old lady, it might even be safe to live on one of them."

The Flame finds that to be a highly ironic statement, under the circumstances.

"Well," she says at last, "let's find an alley so that we can transform under cover and start looking. We should hit the bars, first, and then -"

"Wait a minute," Hazzard interrupts. "You think we should ... go around to places like that, looking like ... like we do when we're transformed?" She seems mortified at the idea.

The Flame smiles, enjoying her rival's discomfort. "I know it's a little immodest. Maybe even ... slutty." Hazzard flinches. Oh, this is good. "But it's also very different from what anyone would expect, and people always fear the unexpected. If you combine that with the right attitude, our look can be very intimidating."

"And you're good at that attitude?" Hazzard guesses.

"Right, so follow my lead." Abruptly, she reconsiders. "Actually, no, don't. Are you familiar with `good guard, bad guard'?"

"Yes, it's an interrogation technique where -"

"You be the kind guard. Act sympathetic, and uncomfortable with the whole deal."

"That should be easy."

Hazzard sounded suspiciously dry, that time.

_Perspective switch_

Sam doesn't trust Gloria.

This is rare. Sam thinks of herself as a fairly trusting person. She doesn't approach strangers in the street to start telling them her life story, but she does believe that most people mean well. Even though some of the things she's met definitely didn't mean well, despite being people in a technical sense, she holds true to the generality.

But Gloria, in Sam's view, definitely doesn't mean well.

She's not sure when she reached that conclusion. It was probably early on, maybe when her eyes lit up at the idea that Sam had found others of their kind. It wasn't, she suspected at once, a pleasant enthusiasm and desire for companionship.

It was probably a very good idea for Sam to call Lara right after she spoke to Mother about being home late, telling Lara to ignore her transformation this evening, that she'd explain later. Of course, that decision means she's entirely on her own at the moment.

She watches Gloria's transformation uneasily. It is almost exactly like Lara's in appearance, except with flames replacing cascades of ice. The results leave in her in the familiar costume, with the addition of absurdly high heeled shoes that surely make it impossible for her to run or fight. She also gains streaks of red and orange in her hair that make her head look like it's on fire.

"Nice outfit," Gloria says, alerting Sam to the fact that she's studying her, just as assiduously. "What's with the hair, though?"

It's hard to defend one's hair style when one didn't choose it and has never actually seen it. "I think it has something to do with invoking the power of the moon."

Gloria just stares.

"You see, in Asian tradition, the man in the moon is really a rabbit. And my ponytails do look like - well, sort of look like - a part of rabbit ears when they're lying flat against the rabbit's skull, so -"

"Do you feel urges to eat green cheese and carrots, too?"

Gloria's sarcasm is really starting to get on Sam's nerves. "So what do we do now? Kick in the door of the nearest tavern, shouting `Magical Warriors of Justice, everybody freeze'?"

"No," says Gloria as she leads the way out of the alley. "We just walk in."

"Just walk in," Sam repeats. "I don't see why that's intimidating."

"It's an art, not a science. Just play the good guard."

The tavern is named Horndogs, which creates a bizarre image in Sam's mind as Gloria throws open the front door and marches inwards. The miasma released by the door's opening makes Sam's nose wrinkle and almost sends her running into the night, but she follows Gloria's lead all the same. She barely has time to adjust to the low light level and the faint sound of jazz issuing from the nickelodeon before Gloria's voice captures her attention.

"Well, well. Out of all the gin joints in all the world, I come stumbling into the one where you're holed up. Marty, Marty, Marty ... I'm pretty sure that coming to Japan is a parole violation." She's speaking to a vaguely dwarfish man perched on a stool by the bar.

The barman is keeping his distance from the spectacle, and none of the other customers seem inclined to interrupt.

"Look, lemme alone," replies Marty, in the nasal tones of an Australian accent. "I dunno nothing, so just go bug someone else."

"Oh, Marty, you don't know how much I'd love to get away from you and your bad breath, but duty calls. Where's the Salesman, Marty? I know he's here in Japan, and I know that you'll have a connection to whatever game he's running this week. So, dish, and you might not lose more teeth."

"I got nothin' to say. I got nothin' to do with the racket anymore. Gimme a rest."

"Give mef a rest, Marty. Your lot have been dealing with the Kingdom since before you got transported. Why in the world would you just up and quit?"

He mumbles something that gives Gloria momentary pause.

"I didn't catch that," Sam comments.

Marty's head jerks up and he stares at her with eyes brimming in tears. "I said me mum _died_ last night, all right?"

Sam controls her instinctive sympathy. If she says the right thing, she can probably draw more information out of him, but she mustn't forget that despite his claims, this man is probably affiliated with the Dark Kingdom. She opens her mouth to offer condolences that will -

Gloria grabs him by the chin, jerks his head around to face her directly, and snaps, "Good!"

Marty stares at her, speechless.

"Actually, you know what, Marty? It's not good that the disease-ridden whore that pupped you has finally kicked off, it comes under the category of `too little, too late', since she lived long enough to give birth to scum like you!

"Now I know that you know where the Salesman is doing business, so start talking or I'm going to find out how well a lump of convict suet burns!"

"You really should tell her what she wants to know, guy, she's kind of crazy," Sam says faintly.

"I don't know anything, you evil fucking bitches!" Marty shrieks, crying openly. "I'm trying to get out, I didn't even bother listening to rumors when I heard them! I -"

"What rumors? Where'd you hear rumors?" Gloria demands.

"Over at the Fountainhead, just leave me alone for Christ's sake!"

"Fine, we'll go there. But if we don't find the Salesman, we're coming back for you. And I won't take whining about your mother for an answer, then." She turns, hair swirling around her as she goes.

Sam looks around, sees the vaguely hostile looks she's getting from every one of the tavern's customers, and swallows. "Drink responsibly," she says quickly, and flees.

She catches up to Gloria a block away from the tavern entrance. "Where is this Fountainhead place?" she asks before Sam can say anything.

"I can't believe you did that."

"Did what?" Gloria doesn't break stride.

"You came in, said those things about his mother, his _mother_, for pity's sake, I can't believe -"

Gloria stops, turns to look square into Sam's face. "For all I know, he made up that stuff about his mother dying."

"Why would he -"

She presses on over Sam's objections. "For all I know, he was dropped on an orphanage when he was born. For all I know, he never had a mother. You want to know what I do know about good ol' Martin Brown? He tortures little girls. They never proved it, but I know he's killed at least two of them. Still feeling sympathetic, girly?"

"You didn't say anything about that," Sam says after a long moment.

"When was I supposed to -"

"You could have mentioned it when you saw him, so that I could overhear. You could have said something like, `still torturing little girls, Marty?' instead of making dumb jokes about his breath and quoting the play `Everyone Comes to Rick's'."

Sam feels very strange. She feels as though her stomach, her chest and her brain are all being compressed, and that her insides are hot while her skin is icy cold. She knows when she's felt like this before; it was the first second after she saw Mary being strangled by her Possessor-dominated mother. She'd thought it was part of the magic; was it, in fact, her own fury? So it would seem.

"Excuse me, who the hell are you to tell me how to run my stings, I've been doing things like this for four God damned years, and -"

"Then it's a wonder you're still alive," Sam briskly interrupts the stream of Gloria's words. This must be fury. Her anger at the second incident of blasphemy doesn't even really register.

Before Gloria can say anything else, Sam turns and looks back the way that they came. "The Fountainhead is this way, a few blocks down. It was profiled in the Gazzette a couple weeks ago. I'm going there now."

She starts to walk away, knowing exactly what a terrible mistake she made in warning Lara away, knowing that she's compounding it by turning her back on Gloria now. She has no offensive power to match that of the warrior of fire. If it comes down to a fight, she is doomed.

She hears Gloria begin walking to catch up to her, and is not much comforted by the momentary reprieve.

_Perspective switch_

The Flame doesn't understand Sam.

Normally, this wouldn't be a problem. She doesn't have to understand her enemies to destroy them, she just has to think that the world will be better off without them. But she's been hurling insults at her for over an hour, and the girl hasn't even noticed - or at least hasn't deigned to give notice. That ... superiority, that attitude of being above any petty remarks that the Flame might make, has been sticking in her craw for a while now. And this new, stony anger - provoked by, as far as she can see, _nothing_ - is even more aggravating. What gives this little blonde Nip bitch the right to judge her?

She could, without a doubt, unleash her fire at Sam. But that would ruin her plans to have the Jap and the Salesman destroy each other, and permit the Salesman to go on peddling his vile wares. The thought of that turns her stomach as much as pretending to like the little bitch did. The part of what she told Sam about tracking him across three continents is true.

They arrive at the Fountainhead - or at least, what the Flame deduces to be the Fountainhead, from the rather large fountain in front of the hotel. Sam starts up the staircase that leads up to the front door, then pauses halfway up.

"What? What is it this time?" the Flame snaps.

"I can't believe I didn't think to try this before," Sam murmurs, but the Flame has a sense that she isn't answering the question posed of her.

Her eyes close, and a moment later the Flame hears a strange faint noise, like the babble of many voices, issuing from all around her and lasting for just a second.

Sam's eyes open, and her mouth twists in a grimace of ill-concealed horror. "Whether he's here or not, this place is a positive sinkhole. I'm sensing about a dozen active Possessor entities."

A hollow point opens up inside the Flame's stomach. "You can sense them?"

Sam nods. "One of my major ablities is a talent for sensng evil." The Flame notes that Sam is steadfastly refusing to look at her. Without even pausing to check if she's being followed, she marches up the rest of the stairs and through the door.

What the Flame ought to do is let her march right to her doom while running briskly in the opposite direction. But if she does, how can she be sure that both her opponents are annihilated? She might have to be there to pick off the survivor.

So she follows Sam, and wonders when exactly she started thinking of `the Hazzard girl' or `Hazzard' as `Sam'?

Inside the lobby, they notice a trio of men bustling around behind the front desk; odd, as there aren't any customers awaiting their attention. A few more are sitting at couches or tables, smoking, reading newspapers, playing cards. No one seems to notice the new arrivals.

"Well?" asks the Flame.

"Well what?" Sam retorts. "I can't tell just by looking at them which are Possessed, unless they start acting ..." She trails off, and, with a shrug, steps forward. "Excuse me," she says loudly, drawing the attention of everyone present. "Would anyone who isn't currently possessed by a soul-sucking monstrosity please leave the building immediately."

Everyone - including the Flame - stares wordlessly at her. And then, every man in the lobby rises up and starts slowly walking towards her, blank-faced and silently.

"Well, now we know."

"Great," the Flame says, and raises her hands to prepare to throw fire. Before the men can come more than a few feet towards them, they abruptly stop at the sound of hands clapping.

Sam looks up the lobby's staircase, from which the sound issued. "Would that be the Salesman?"

The Flame turns to look up where Sam is looking, and nods. "Yes, that's him all right." She's struck, as always, by how gaunt he looks, like a pale, barely fleshed skeleton, like an unrepentant Scrooge.

"Ah, my dear Flame. So good of you to finally bring her to us."

The Flame had a scorching comment prepared; it dies on her lips.

"Oh, don't," Sam says with disgust plain in her voice. "Whatever else she might be, she's not any part of your organization."

What does _thatf_ mean, whatever else she might be?

"You're quite mistaken about that, young Dame ... what do you call yourself, anyway? What alias do you use to strike fear into our hearts?"

"I don't have one," Sam Hazzard says. "I've been too busy killing your kind to come up with one."

Total confidence, total absence of fear in her tone. God, I hate her, thinks the Flame.

_Perspective switch_

"I've been too busy killing your kind to come up with one," Sam says, wishing she felt half as confident as she hopes that she sounds.

The thing on the staircase, flanked by a pair of obviously possessed men, looks down on her with an unreadable expression. "Yes," he says at last, "that's more or less what I was expecting. And, sadly for you, that attitude is precisely why we had the Flame bring you here before us. You are responsible for too many of our recent losses for us to allow you to live."

"Are you planning on talking me to death?"

"I was hoping to persuade you to offer no resistance. We can arrange for it to be painless, after all."

"Not interested," Sam replies. Nine men on the same floor as her, two more up on the stairs, plus this guy. That's the dozen that she sensed. Have to hope that's all of them.

"Very well, then." He looks down at the men below. "Kill them both, and a promotion to the killer if either of them dies screaming."

"Cover me," Sam snaps at Gloria, and whips her hands up. "How dare you abuse the bodies of these men by compelling them to perform tasks of banality and tedium?" All of them, please, all of them. "Were it within me, I would punish you with firey torment -" As Gloria is doing, with a certain odd amount of clumsiness and uncertainty. "- I would immure you in frigid ice, I would rain down thunder upon you, I would make your name a half-forgotten memory. Yet these are not mine. All that I may do is all that I shall do: I cast you out of this place, by the light of the Sun and the warmth of the Earth, and by the Moon who is their daughter - but more, by th one behind them, whose name we do not know." Please, Lord? "I cast you out. BEGONE!" With the last word, she spreads her arms wide, as though trying to embrace all the possessed men at once.

Something passes out of her, leaving her almost staggering in its wake. When the dots before her eyes fade, she sees four of the men bent over backwards, spewing gas up into the air. Three of the gases are purple, but one is green -

Green!

When that cloud disperses, the man beneath it collapses just as the other three do. But though they will never move again, he immediately pushes himself up to a half-way seated position, looking around blearily. "What ...?" he asks.

"Sir, please, get up, get up and get -" Sam begins to exhort.

One of the two possessed men flanking the Salesman leaps over the staircase's railing, drops to the floor beside the woozy looking man, and, without pausing or blinking an eye, wrenches his head around one hundred and eighty degrees. The sound of the neck breaking echoes in the air.

Sam stares.

**Everything is very quiet, and all the things that there are to see are very far away right at the moment. She can hear herself saying something, but she doesn't understand the words. Maybe they'll make sense later. Who knows? Who really knows anything? **

And then she blinks.

Where, Sam wonders, did all these bodies come from?

There are eleven of them, all lying on the floor. Most of them look like they're only sleeping, but from the absence of any chest movement and the open, glassy eyes of a few, she knows that they aren't. One of them has an obviously broken neck, and two of them ... are missing parts of their throats and upper chest.

Sam feels as though she ought to gag at that final sight, but she can't, quite.

She turns to look curiously at Gloria, who is standing back against one of the walls and looking at her almost fearfully. When did the other girl get so blood-spattered, and how?

"Uh ... I think you should probably finish off the Salesman," Gloria says, a moment after she realizes that Sam is looking at her.

"Right," Sam replies, and looks around for a moment until she recalls where the staircase is. The Salesman is lying o his back where - as she recalls - he was standing, earlier.

She mounts the stairs unsteadily, walking up until her eyes can look plainly into the eyes of the plainly terrified Salesman. "You're not a Dame," he says, gulping down air. "You couldn't be, and do things like that. What are you?" He sounds almost like he's begging, there at the end.

"I'm me," Sam says. Then she repeats her chant and watches him disintegrate.

"Hah!" says Gloria from the floor. "Great shot! I ... I'm really glad to be working with you! We make a great team, don't we?"

Sam turns and looks down at the bodies, remembering now how the one with the broken neck got that way. The rest of it ...

"No," she says at last. "We don't."

"Huh?"

"Get out of here. Go back to Europe. Go back to the mainland. I don't care where you go. But I don't want to work with you, and if you're in Japan, I think I won't have a choice."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute, this wasn't my -"

"You are loud, brash and crude. You blaspheme and you insult. You were less than useless fighting these men; I suspect that most of what you've done involved fighting and killing other human pawns." Deep breath, don't cry. "You are the very last person I would ever want at my side, or watching my back. I don't like you, I don't trust you, and I definitely don't need you."

Gloria is staring at her, mouth wide open. She doesn't look seventeen. She looks about the same age as she would have been when she started; the same age that Diane is now.

"Go home," Sam repeats, trying to sound gentle this time.

It's a mistake. She can see the decision being made on Gloria's face, even as the other girl's mouth begins to twist and she draws in the breath to scream the chant and her arms come up -

And then the doors leading to the rear of the hotel explode inward as a form that manages to look dwarfish even as it tops seven feet slams into the lobby, six pseudopods flailing wildly from where they emerge from its back.

"FLAME," it snarls, and whips the pseudopods so that they ensnare Gloria before she can even speak.

"Not so tough, are you?" shouts the man-thing. "Not when it's you on the rack, you fucking Yank bitch?"

Two of the pseudopods seem to be tightening their grip around Gloria's head. She already can't speak. A shift of motion brings her eyes around so that they meet Sam's, and she can see the pleading expression in them.

She ought to ignore it. She already suspects that she'll need to make sure that she's lying down when she turns the switch off in her head, because she expects to be dead to the world after she does. And the thing that used to be Martin Brown, alleged torturer of children and stoolie, has shown no sign of even noticing her presence.

Father, why me?

"Excuse me," she says.

It turns look at her, its last two pseudopods twitching.

"I'd just like to say that I'm very sorry about your mother." Deep breath. "But how dare you try to kill this girl, who has done nothing more harmful to you than to say cruel words?"

The rest of the chant is delivered in a monotone, yet it remains effective for all that. When it is done, the man-thing shrinks in on itself to reveal Martin's form at its heart, whatever sorcerous power he'd drawn upon vanishing like patterns in the sand at high tide. Gloria drops to the ground as the pseudopods vanish, breathing heavily, but unharmed.

"And furthermore," Sam comments as she walks down the stairs, feeling like she's walking barefoot on broken glass, "your attitude gets you involved in fights you could have avoided - like that one. And they leave you, and your allies, less able to fight the ones that actually matter."

"I didn't know he could do that," Gloria says defensively as she gets up and walks over to stare at Martin's body. Perhaps she honestly thinks that excuses everything.

Sam checks the pulse of the last crumpled body to join the others on the floor.

Of course.

"Well, you don't have to worry about what he can do anymore," she says, and standing up she reaches back and slaps Gloria across the face as hard has her own mother did the one and only time blasphemy escaped her lips. It may bruise. She hopes so.

"Go home," she says, and turns to walk away.

She hasn't gotten more than a few feet when she hears the strangled words, "My heart." She turns around, knowing that she can do nothing to stop it, but unwilling to give her the satisfaction of not seeing her final look of contempt before -

_Perspective switch_

"- drew it forth!" the Flame shrieks, and feels the fire, more intense than ever before, stream out towards the evil one. For a moment, the evil one looks like what she imagines stupid, weak Gloria looked like in the moment when she became the Flame; wrapped in fire, hidden from sight, and -

And then, my friends, something very strange happens.

The fire seems to flow, like water or maybe lava, away from Sam's extremities, leaving them unmarked, towards her torso, and then into the moonstone at the heart of her pendant. Her body and clothes are not even singed, but the moonstone glows like a star.

"Ow," says Sam, sounding very distant.

It's just not fair, thinks the small part of Gloria's mind still able to think.

Sam holds her hands up, looking at them as though looking at two tools she's never used before. "Too much," she says. "Have to use it up."

And incredibly, or maybe not if you think about it a little, she turns her back on Gloria _again_ and walks out through the shattered doors. After a moment, the other girl follows.

There are a few people on the street in this evening, and Sam's appearance draws a few saucy comments and even a wolf whistle. She ignores it as she walks along to the fenced off area, until she looks directly at the Giant's Footprint.

"That should be about right," she says, and steps up into the air. lifts up her hands, and begins to speak. Or at least, begins to seem to speak, for no sound issues from her mouth.

_Elsewhere _

On the eighty-ninth floor of the tallest building in Nieuw Amsterdam, a man who resembles a bronze statue is seated in the lotus position a foot above the floor. His head suddenly lifts, and he turns to look towards the west. A fascinated trilling fills the air around him.

_Elsewhere _

A gray-haired woman stares at the exploded remnants of a crystal ball, and begins to suspect that she has made a terrible mistake. But there is no going back, now. There has not been for some time.

_Elsewhere _

Sam feels herself return to the ground, and hears the whispers of all those around her who saw her levitating trick. She would flush, but she feels too tired.

"What did you do?"

She doesn't even turn to look at Gloria as she replies. "I reduced the radiation on that particular spot to about normal levels. I don't know how." Deep breath. "Go home."

"I can't."

"Then go away."

"_I can't_. I want to, but I have to be here. I'm part of your chant, the Flame That Punishes. That makes me your subordinate. If I leave you now, I'll lose my powers."

"How sad."

"You don't understand ... I was so afraid, you were so much stronger than I imagined or expected and I was so jealous, and you ... you don't know what it's like, this is the only thing in my life that's ever been worth anything, please, please, don't make me lose this ..."

Sam finally turns to look at Gloria. The tears are real, but she has the sense that they're covering something. Even now, she's employing guile.

But what if she's fooling herself, too, thinks Sam. Suppose that she's telling the truth, but thinks that she's lying? Then I'd have another mess on my hands.

Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies closer.

"All right. You can stay."

_Perspective switch_

"Thank you, oh thank you!" You sap. "You won't regret this." It's that medallion, take it away and she'll be helpless. "Thank you ..."

As Gloria begins to plan her vengeance, two questions almost occur to her. Where did the idea for her lie about losing her powers without Sam's presence come from? And when did she start thinking of herself as Gloria?

But she doesn't think of that. She's good at that.


End file.
